From owner-freebsd-questions Tue Mar 18 21:42:20 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id VAA07572 for questions-outgoing; Tue, 18 Mar 1997 21:42:20 -0800 (PST) Received: from labinfo.iet.unipi.it (labinfo.iet.unipi.it [131.114.9.5]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id VAA07564 for ; Tue, 18 Mar 1997 21:42:10 -0800 (PST) Received: from localhost (luigi@localhost) by labinfo.iet.unipi.it (8.6.5/8.6.5) id FAA01847; Wed, 19 Mar 1997 05:48:31 +0100 From: Luigi Rizzo Message-Id: <199703190448.FAA01847@labinfo.iet.unipi.it> Subject: Re: diskless operation / netbooting prob To: dlowe@sirius.com (David Lowe) Date: Wed, 19 Mar 1997 05:48:30 +0100 (MET) Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org In-Reply-To: from "David Lowe" at Mar 18, 97 05:37:45 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL23] Content-Type: text Sender: owner-questions@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk > Hey people - > > I am testing out the possibility of netbooting our FreeBSD machines. We > have a lot of FreeBSD machines with almost no local data being stored on > them. We are already doing 90% of the work over NFS - it makes sense to > take them one further step, to the netbooting phase. > > I've read over Jerry Kendall's howto, and the Handbook entry on the > subject, and am still having a problem; it doesn't work :( > > Both the boot server and the diskless client are Pentium 133 machines, > with 64MB RAM, and SMC EtherPower 10/100 PCI cards on a 10 megabit > network. The server is running 2.2-RELEASE, the client is running > 2.2-BETA. > > After building the nb8390.com loader, putting it on a DOS bootable floppy, no wonder it does not work, nb8390 only supports wd8xxx/ne2000 type of boards and your SMC 10/100 is surely not one of these. The thing which comes closer to netboot is to build a boot floppy with a kernel (and a loader, you have the choice between the FreeBSD loader and fbsdboot) and use the kernel bootp stuff by Tor Egge (I have a copy, I also posted it some time ago). It works fine here, although booting from a floppy is ssssslllllooooowwwww .... this can be overcome if you happen to have a HD and can load the kernel (and just that) from the HD. Luigi -----------------------------+-------------------------------------- Luigi Rizzo | Dip. di Ingegneria dell'Informazione email: luigi@iet.unipi.it | Universita' di Pisa tel: +39-50-568533 | via Diotisalvi 2, 56126 PISA (Italy) fax: +39-50-568522 | http://www.iet.unipi.it/~luigi/ _____________________________|______________________________________