Date: Tue, 4 Jun 2013 16:20:29 -0400 (EDT) From: Antoine Beaupre <anarcat@koumbit.org> To: FreeBSD-gnats-submit@freebsd.org Subject: misc/179312: PXE installer fails to boot without modification Message-ID: <201306042020.r54KKTvd027268@rtr0.koumbit.net> Resent-Message-ID: <201306042030.r54KU0Vu033061@freefall.freebsd.org>
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>Number: 179312 >Category: misc >Synopsis: PXE installer fails to boot without modification >Confidential: no >Severity: serious >Priority: medium >Responsible: freebsd-bugs >State: open >Quarter: >Keywords: >Date-Required: >Class: sw-bug >Submitter-Id: current-users >Arrival-Date: Tue Jun 04 20:30:00 UTC 2013 >Closed-Date: >Last-Modified: >Originator: Antoine Beaupre >Release: FreeBSD 9.1-RELEASE amd64 >Organization: Koumbit.org >Environment: -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 153296896 mai 29 17:02 FreeBSD-9.1-RELEASE-amd64-bootonly.iso SHA1: 2038a484ffeea3225e6d91bb1488e2548ac173bb FreeBSD-9.1-RELEASE-amd64-bootonly.iso >Description: There used to be a way to install FreeBSD through a PXE bootloader. That bootloader is still present in the ISO and while the article itself has disappeared (http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en/articles/pxe/article.html), I assume that this capability was not lost in the 9.x series. PXE-based installs do not work out of the box in 9.1 anymore, a regression from 8.1 at the very least. >How-To-Repeat: Follow those instructions: http://freebsd.so14k.com/freebsd9_pxe.shtml >Fix: As you see in the above instructions, the user needed to comment out the following line in /etc/fstab: /dev/iso9660/FREEBSD_INSTALL / cd9660 ro 0 0 ... otherwise the boot fails. Having to modify that file means we need to duplicate all those files instead of being able to simply mount the ISO as a filesystem and offer it over NFS... But even then, this seems just like a crude workaround to a wider problem: in 8.1, the .ISO could be loaded directly into memory and boot properly through a local memory filesystem. That way, the .iso could be loaded directly from syslinux, for example with pxelinux and memdisk: LABEL FreeBSD-8.1-i386 MENU LABEL FreeBSD 8.1 i386 kernel memdisk append initrd=freebsd/FreeBSD-8.1-RELEASE-i386-bootonly.iso iso raw This doesn't work in 9.1 anymore, probably because the mfsroot file seems to be gone from 9.1. All this makes PXE-based FreeBSD deployments *much* harder and less attractive than before, because we need to setup a separate NFS server and hack at the files. >Release-Note: >Audit-Trail: >Unformatted:
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