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Date:      Sun, 3 Jan 1999 13:30:53 -0800 (PST)
From:      Matthew Dillon <dillon@apollo.backplane.com>
To:        Brian Dean <brdean@mindspring.com>
Cc:        mike@smith.net.au (Mike Smith), brdean@mindspring.com, jwd@unx.sas.com, freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   Re: make release (almost) No space left on device
Message-ID:  <199901032130.NAA52511@apollo.backplane.com>
References:   <199901032113.QAA68859@vger.foo.com>

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:> > will make this chore almost unbearable!
:> 
:> We'll do what we can, but consider using a bootable CDROM instead of 
:> floppies for your installs.  Much faster. 
:> 
:> There's a limit to what we can pack onto a floppy, unfortunately. 8(
:
:I only use the floppy to boot.  For the distribution media, I use NFS
:or FTP from a local server.  I generate 30 or so boot floppies with a
:sysinstall configuration file for each system and boot them all in
:parallel.  If I don't install the ports, I can usually be completely
:done with all of the machines in less than 40 minutes.  A multiple
:...
:
:-Brian
:-- 
:Brian Dean			brdean@mindspring.com

    I just disklabel a floppy, installing bootblocks on it (of course),
    then compile up a BOOTP kernel and throw it onto the floppy.  I kzip
    the kernel on the floppy if necessary.

    Then I simply run dhcpd on my main server and NFS-export (read-only)
    / and /usr and adjust /etc/rc to notice a bootp boot and the a
    bootp-specific rc startup.  Hell, I can even configure NFS based swap,
    though it requires exporting the swap files read+write.

host test1 {
    hardware ethernet 00:a0:b0:d3:38:25;
    fixed-address 209.157.86.111;
    option root-path "209.157.86.62:/";
    option option-128 "209.157.86.62:/images/swap";
}

host test2 {
    hardware ethernet 00:e0:31:1d:16:09;
    fixed-address 209.157.86.112;
    option root-path "209.157.86.62:/";
    option option-128 "209.157.86.62:/images/swap";
}

apollo:/usr/src/sys# ls -la /images/swap
total 229514
drwxr-xr-x  2 root    wheel        512 Dec 28 07:00 .
drwxr-xr-x  8 root    wheel        512 Dec 26 18:58 ..
-rw-r--r--  1 lander  wheel   33554432 Dec 23 14:35 swap.209.157.86.111
-rw-r--r--  1 lander  wheel   67108864 Jan  2 12:25 swap.209.157.86.112
-rw-r--r--  1 lander  wheel  134217728 Jan  2 03:26 swap.209.157.86.6

    My bootp-specific rc script does general setup of the machine - mainly
    involving creating MFS filesystems for /dev, /home, /var/tmp,
    /var/db, /var/run, and so forth (I suppoes I could have just done /var),
    initializing the contents of those systems, and doing various other 
    things.  It also figures out the IP address of the machine and runs a
    machine-specific config.

lander:/home/dillon> df
Filesystem           1K-blocks     Used    Avail Capacity  Mounted on
209.157.86.2:/           63503    42613    15810    73%    /
209.157.86.2:/usr       508143   315662   151830    68%    /usr
209.157.86.2:/var        63503    11685    46738    20%    /var
209.157.86.2:/images   1397423   434131   851499    34%    /images
mfs:31                     959       72      811     8%    /var/run
mfs:33                    7903      540     6731     7%    /var/db
mfs:35                   31743        8    29196     0%    /var/tmp
mfs:37                   31743        7    29197     0%    /var/spool
procfs                       4        4        0   100%    /proc
mfs:57                    1511       58     1333     4%    /dev
mfs:61                   31743     1990    27214     7%    /home
lander:/home/dillon> 

    The kernel configuration parameters necessary to do a BOOTP kernel are:

options         BOOTP           # Use BOOTP to obtain IP address/hostname
options         BOOTP_NFSROOT   # NFS mount root filesystem using BOOTP info
options         "BOOTP_NFSV3"   # Use NFS v3 to NFS mount rootoptions
options         BOOTP_COMPAT    # Workaround for broken bootp daemons.
#options         "BOOTP_WIRED_TO=xxx"

#options        NFS_NOSERVER            #Disable the NFS-server code.
options         NFS                     #Network Filesystem
options         NFS_ROOT

    The only requirement is that the DHCPD server be on the same LAN as the
    machines you boot from it, since it uses a low level ethernet protocol
    to do its stuff.

    The coolest thing is that all the sophistication resides on my main
    server - the floppy has nothing on it but a kernel, so I can make changes
    to the booting sequence without having to rewrite the floppy.

						-Matt

    Matthew Dillon  Engineering, HiWay Technologies, Inc. & BEST Internet 
                    Communications & God knows what else.
    <dillon@backplane.com> (Please include original email in any response)    


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