From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Wed Sep 21 10:05:24 2005 Return-Path: X-Original-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 5DED916A41F for ; Wed, 21 Sep 2005 10:05:24 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from kevinstovall@hotmail.com) Received: from hotmail.com (bay101-f5.bay101.hotmail.com [64.4.56.15]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 26B6743D46 for ; Wed, 21 Sep 2005 10:05:24 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from kevinstovall@hotmail.com) Received: from mail pickup service by hotmail.com with Microsoft SMTPSVC; Wed, 21 Sep 2005 03:05:23 -0700 Message-ID: Received: from 64.4.56.200 by by101fd.bay101.hotmail.msn.com with HTTP; Wed, 21 Sep 2005 10:05:23 GMT X-Originating-IP: [64.4.56.200] X-Originating-Email: [kevinstovall@hotmail.com] X-Sender: kevinstovall@hotmail.com In-Reply-To: <4331077C.80005@locolomo.org> From: "kevin stovall" To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Date: Wed, 21 Sep 2005 10:05:23 +0000 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed X-OriginalArrivalTime: 21 Sep 2005 10:05:23.0915 (UTC) FILETIME=[FB8451B0:01C5BE93] Subject: Re: Diskless Boot Problem X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Wed, 21 Sep 2005 10:05:24 -0000 Yes, / is read-only and /var is rw. Here is my fstab: 192.168.0.200:/home/diskless_ro / nfs ro 0 0 192.168.0.200:/home/diskless_rw/var /var nfs rw 0 0 192.168.0.200:/home/diskless_rw/tmp /tmp nfs rw 0 0 192.168.0.200:/usr /usr nfs rw 0 0 proc /proc procfs rw 0 0 I will try to get more of the terminal input tomorrow. Here is the last few lines Trying to mount root from nfs:192.168.0.200:/home/diskless_ro NFS ROOT: 192.168.0.200:/home/diskless_ro Interface fxp0 IP-Address 192.168.0.196 Broadcast 192.168.0.255 Date Also, I will try setting varmfs and tmpmfs to "YES" tomorrow to see if that works. you should (and have?) mount / read-only, then mount /var either as a mfs or nfs mounted read-write. If there is no writable /var, dhclient cannot store the lease - this is true both in 5.x and 6.x. If you look through /etc/rc.d/var (there is an equivalent one for tmp) you will see it has three modes: yes, no and auto. If set to yes, a mfs /var partition is created, if auto, the startup scripts will check if there is a writable /var, if not, then an mfs /var is created - this is default. There are good reasons for using mfs for /tmp and /var, as well as for not: by using mfs you have no cleanup, and no personal data is disclosed if logout causes a reboot every time. However, in particular for /var there are data that is usefull to keep: IIRC latex stores generated fonts there. If you have an mfs /var then the problem mentioned should not cause nfs-mounts to be lost because the lease is stored in the mfs. But if /var is an nfs mount then you may have a problem. I sent a problem report on this, it was closed because I didn't get back on it. Reason is that I haven't had time to set up diskless FBSD6 environment. So, I'm not sure, however, if you include output from the terminal (yes I know it's tideus to copy), I can see if I can interpret it.