asterisk users - Aug 2003 - Re: Asterisk diskless server, a web page with more info?

Hello,

I've had quite a few requests for this info, so I thought I'd copy this
to the list as well.  Since I don't really monitor the list anymore,
queries should be directed back to me if you have problems.

On Wed, 2003-08-20 at 04:08, Sjur Eivind Usken wrote:
> Dear Ben,
> 
> I saw your posting on the newslist about the diskless configuration you
have
> done.
> 
> Can you please let me know more details around it.
> 
> I'm familiar how to boot a diskless pc from the ROM on the network
cards, so
> I would like to know the following:
In my case, I used network cards with Intel's PXE (Preboot eXecution
Envirionment) boot loader.  These cards have a built-in DHCP and TFTP
client.  You can use pxeboot (by H. Peter Anvin, the same person that
wrote isolinux and syslinux), which can be found at
http://syslinux.zytor.com.  I then created a custom built kernel,
compiled some static binaries, and created an initial ramdisk.  This is
documented elsewhere, but the quick steps are

dd if=/dev/zero of=disk.img bs=1024 count=65536
/sbin/mke2fs disk.img # (you'll get a warning here that its not a block
device, hit y to accept)
mount -o loop disk.img /mnt

THen copy your kernel and static binaries in there.  Unmount, gzip -9
disk.img (to make for faster booting), drop the gzipped file in the tftp
directory per the pxelinux documentation, configure dhcpd, and go!  

Ok, so there are a few more steps in there (like compile asterisk,
create /etc /tmp and /var, configure syslog) but that should give you a
start.  I followed the existing diskless linux howto and the nfs-root
linux howto, with heavy modifications.  If you get seriously stuck,
shoot me an email back and I'll send you a copy of my configuration
files.  

When I get some time (don't hold your breath) I may put up a webpage
detailing what I did with example configuration files.
> 
> You use a pc with just 128mb memory, that you install a small linux distro.
> Is it possible to have a copy of this?
I didn't make a distro per se, but once I got the image stable, I just
copied it and changed some key /etc files and it was good to go.  Since
I use a cron job which calls lynx to read from a PHP/MySQL page to
generate my configuration, there is very little to do per image.  This
was a key design requirement so that I could roll out 20 of these things
in short order if necessary.
> 
> Are any other files available, e.g. your booting configuration and the
linux
> setup? I had a look at your website, but didn't find any information
there.
You had a look at my website?  I wasn't aware I had one of those... 
See above comment, hopefully I can put something up for real one of
these days.
> 
> This could make asterisk easy to expand to a lot of branches, with a
> centralized configuration and easy redundancy.
Yep!  My design has solved this problem and has been stable for over a
year.  Its met my goals pretty well.
> 
> Answers would be greatly appreciated!
Good luck on your project!
> 
> 
-- 
Ben Klang, KF4WBX
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