On Sun, May 03, 1998 at 12:56:06AM -0700, Joey Hess wrote: > Hamish Moffatt wrote: > > I suggest the NFS-Root and NFS-Root-Client mini-howtos. What I have > > ended up doing is creating a tree with just enough of /bin, /sbin/, > > /etc, /var and /tmp to boot up in it, then the client will mount > > the server's /bin, /sbin, /home and /usr over the top. I have about 3.5mb > > per client and I am hoping to thin this out some more. (Unfortunately, > > the startup scripts require bash, and bash + libreadline + curses etc > > are huge.) This way I have effectively got a Debian system remotely, > > although it can't be used for package installation/deinstallation etc > > of course because /usr is readonly, and /var and /etc are machine-specific. > > An alternative is to use the nametrans patch for the kernel (I think this > has actually been integrated into the 2.1.x kernel). This lets you nfs mount > server:/ on the clients at their root directory. The few files > (/etc/hostname, /etc/init.d/network, etc) that need to be different for each > computer are given special names, like /etc/init.d/network#HOST=foo#, and the > client named foo will see that file as /etc/init.d/network.
This sounds nice, but would it support say /etc/init.d#HOST=foo#? My diskless clients are low end machines (386s, 486s with 8-12mb RAM) and so I don't want to start up everything I do on the server, for example. Also, what about /tmp and /var -- those howtos seem to suggest that each machine should have its own. Mounting all of server:/ seems to be all read-only or all read-write too. I would prefer /home, /tmp and /var (the last two being machine specific) to be read-write, but everything is readonly. Although it's only me using these things it's better to play safe. One problem with the way I have it now is that the root is like server:/tftpboot/<client_IP>, and without creating a different fstab for each machine, I can't put the root in the fstab. This seems to upset the scripts and mount a bit, but it works anyway. Hamish -- Hamish Moffatt, [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED] Latest Debian packages at ftp://ftp.rising.com.au/pub/hamish. PGP#EFA6B9D5 CCs of replies from mailing lists are welcome. http://hamish.home.ml.org -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
