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Date:      Fri, 25 Sep 2015 13:25:59 -0600
From:      Ian Lepore <ian@freebsd.org>
To:        freebsd-arm@freebsd.org
Subject:   Re: netboot configuration [was: Re: NFS Root with Raspberry Pi (nfs_diskless: no interface)]
Message-ID:  <1443209159.1224.361.camel@freebsd.org>
In-Reply-To: <FE458AF3-A9EE-46B1-89E3-1FB82E413E17@cs.huji.ac.il>
References:  <20150922052522.GA62140@gmail.com> <00C49FEB-E8EF-4469-85E2-0F901215CD11@cs.huji.ac.il> <20150923050414.GB43653@gmail.com> <91AAC64E-4C38-47AA-8910-48F7654A7524@cs.huji.ac.il> <20150923174445.GE43653@gmail.com> <CFAAFAE2-F0B2-431B-93C6-61D66464B7FD@cs.huji.ac.il> <1443105426.1224.272.camel@freebsd.org> <20150924163658.GC32257@gmail.com> <560438C5.3090404@selasky.org> <1443142468.1224.322.camel@freebsd.org> <FE458AF3-A9EE-46B1-89E3-1FB82E413E17@cs.huji.ac.il>

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On Fri, 2015-09-25 at 11:37 +0300, Daniel Braniss wrote:
> > On 25 Sep 2015, at 03:54, Ian Lepore <ian@FreeBSD.org> wrote:
> > 
> > On Thu, 2015-09-24 at 19:54 +0200, Hans Petter Selasky wrote:
> >> On 09/24/15 18:36, Randy Westlund wrote:
> >>> On Thu, Sep 24, 2015 at 08:37:06AM -0600, Ian Lepore wrote:
> >> 
[...stuff about problems netbooting...]
> 
> hi Ian,
> can you help me here?
> I need the magics to get ubldr to boot from the net,
> i¢m using an image built via crochet. 
> 
> cheers,
> 	danny

I've been struggling with how to set up a new default u-boot environment
in our ports to make netbooting easier.  The problem is that there are
as many ways to netboot as there are different people wanting to do it.
What I've been doing for years is loading both ubldr and the kernel from
nfs, by configuring my dhcp server to provide all the info needed (board
ip and netmask, server ip, ubldr file to load, and nfs root path), all
based on the mac address of the board.  I've learned that doesn't work
well for most people who don't have easy control over their dhcp server.

To try to keep this relatively simple, I'm going to assume that what
most folks want to do is:

      * Load ubldr from the sdcard that has u-boot on it (not from nfs).
      * Make ubldr load the freebsd kernel from nfs.
      * Use an nfs root filesystem.

So I'm assuming you've got an nfs server already serving up the root
filesystem (I'm not going to detail configuring that here).  That
filesystem must contain an /etc/fstab that includes the ip:/rootpath
entry for the root filesystem.  In other words, even though the software
must already know the ip:/rootpath to find the fstab file, the file
still must contain a root path entry.  (I find this annoying.)

Now on the u-boot side you need to add a few lines to the uEnv.txt file
on the FAT partition (create the file there if it doesn't already
exist).  You can configure a static IP address or get the IP from dhcp:

For static IP (On RPi only, add one line: UserPreboot=usb start)

        loaderdev=net
        rootpath=192.168.0.240:/wand
        ipaddr=192.168.0.233
        netmask=255.255.255.0


For DHCP (On RPi only, last line is: UserPreboot=usb start && dhcp)

        loaderdev=net
        rootpath=192.168.0.240:/wand
        autoload=no
        UserPreboot=dhcp

BTW, you may notice a Netboot command in the standard u-boot env.  Do
NOT set bootcmd=run Netboot, that would make u-boot try to load ubldr
over the network, which requires running a tftp server.

-- Ian





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