Setting up Core – MDs.

[levster]

Thom,

I appreciate your "humor", but I WISH I COULD BOOT FROM A DISKLESS SYSTEM!!! As you can see, I cannot!!! Reading the posts, apparently I am not the only one who is having problems with diskless MD. If you have a suggestion - I am all ears!!! Believe me, it would be much easier for me if I could avoid second 810 install. So, "Don't argue. Just do it." is not a Nike commercial here.

Please, I do not mind constructive criticism, but do not make fun or look "down" at the rest of us here, who liked the idea of LMCE, but just can't make it work! If we were plug-and-pray people, we would stick with Windows MCE! I like the idea of LMCE, but it just needs more "fine-tuning".

So, if you do not have anything useful to say - DON'T SAY ANYTHING AT ALL!!!!

And, keep your "thwaps" insults to yourself! 

[tschak909]

Install the latest build, use it.

Disked MDs do not work. Do not try them.

-Thom

[levster]

You lost me...

First you say - install the latest build. Then you say - disked MDs do not work.

Are you talking about installing the latest build on a Core? If that is the case - I did! I have the latest 0810 alpha 2 running. I just installed it a few days ago. What else are you referring to?

[tschak909]

we have newer changes than a few days ago, some last minute changes before beta. The Beta DVD will be released tomorrow.

-Thom

[levster]

 

Are you saying that there will be a beta 0810 tomorrow??? That would be great!

So, just to make sure, for us with "learning disabilities",

1. Get a new DVD image tomorrow
2. Reinstall the Core with the new image
3. Attempt a diskless MD with the new Core

Am I missing anything?

Thanks,

Lev

[colinjones]

yes he means install the new version on the core. All discussions that talk about "installing" refer to the core.... all discussions about MDs refer to booting from the network. If you have a boot issue on an MD then we need to address the boot issue on the MD.... ie address the root cause not the symptom

we have not had disked MDs for a long time.... for normal situations they are absolutely not required, realistically boot time is not an issue (which is most people's concern) as even on a slow machine the boot time is little different. The only genuine reason for disked boot (that springs to mind) is for wireless MDs... and that may come back in time

[levster]

yes he means install the new version on the core. All discussions that talk about "installing" refer to the core.... all discussions about MDs refer to booting from the network. If you have a boot issue on an MD then we need to address the boot issue on the MD.... ie address the root cause not the symptom

we have not had disked MDs for a long time.... for normal situations they are absolutely not required, realistically boot time is not an issue (which is most people's concern) as even on a slow machine the boot time is little different. The only genuine reason for disked boot (that springs to mind) is for wireless MDs... and that may come back in time

Thank you! 24 minutes left for the download, and then - off to the races!!! Can't wait! 

[levster]

New 810 beta running on a core. I tried adding an MD, a Zotac ion 330 board, and cannot get past the first 2 seconds of boot. The MD gets stuck at "unable to locate configuration file". The immediately preceding message is "Trying to load: pxelinux.cfg/default".

Then a message: Boot failed: press a key to retry, or wait for reset...............

Also, on the Core, superimposed on to the main LMCE page, is a message "Starting Media Director Devices". However, this message does not change and does not go away. Obviously, I do not see this message on the web orbiter.

Any thoughts?

Lev

[Thingie]

New 810 beta running on a core. I tried adding an MD, a Zotac ion 330 board, and cannot get past the first 2 seconds of boot. The MD gets stuck at "unable to locate configuration file". The immediately preceding message is "Trying to load: pxelinux.cfg/default".

Then a message: Boot failed: press a key to retry, or wait for reset...............

Also, on the Core, superimposed on to the main LinuxMCE page, is a message "Starting Media Director Devices". However, this message does not change and does not go away. Obviously, I do not see this message on the web orbiter.

Any thoughts?

Lev

Same problems here

[pigdog]

Hi,

After alpha 2.15 I had this error message come up on a system using a RLT8139 which worked fine until the 2.15 update.

-Trying to load:pxelinux.cfg /01-00-08-54-11-98-e3
-could not find kernel image:31/vmlinux
boot:

Eventually after two weeks of tracking it down...

I went into /tftpboot/pxelinux.cfg and edited the default boot script to remove acpi=off.

The system then booted.

After everything was working I changed the default back to acpi=off.

My system BIOS did not have any settings for turning on or off acpi.

Maybe yours does and you could try that before doing any editing.

[Thingie]

I went into /tftpboot/pxelinux.cfg and edited the default boot script to remove acpi=off.

The system then booted.

After everything was working I changed the default back to acpi=off.

My system BIOS did not have any settings for turning on or off acpi.

Maybe yours does and you could try that before doing any editing.

Looked in the /tftpboot/pxelinux.cfg folder and it was empty. So nothing to edit. Is this normal?
I tried to add the MD manually filling in as much of the settings as I could and the progress got a few steps further but then it gets into a loop and keeps rebooting. So I deleted the manual MD and now it's stuck again at 'Setup Failed'. I used the same computer setup on the 710 releases and never had any problems.

[pigdog]

Hi,

When I logon to a console and enter the command      cd /tftpboot

then    ls

I have the following response   35 47 default pxelinux.0 pxelinux.cfg

I have two MD's which are 35 and 47 from the output above.

You should have the minimum of default pxelinux.0 and pxelinux.cfg

default and pxelinux.cfg are directories.

In pxelinux.cfg I have the MAC hardware addresses from the ethernet cards in the MDs and a file named default.

Default reads...

DEFAULT Pluto
LABEL Pluto
KERNEL default/vmlinuz
APPEND root=/dev/nfs acpi=off vga=normal initrd=default/initrd ramdisk_size=10240 rw ip=all apicpmtimer

You could try to create the default file and then boot your MD.

[Schmich]

I have no idea if this is stated on the DVD or if it has anything to do with your problem but, in the wiki it says that on the DVD the initial MD image is not installed so you have to do it manually by running:

Code:

/usr/pluto/bin/Diskless_CreateTBZ.sh

http://wiki.linuxmce.org/index.php/LinuxMCE-0810_beta
Again I might be completely off-track but the page is new so I thought I'd mention it.

[team_steeze]

This might be a moot point for you guys by now but I thought I would share that I had and fixed the same problem.
I went into /tftpboot/MD# and found that the symlinks for initrd.img and vmlinuz were broken.  I traced these over to /usr/pluto/diskless/MD#/boot and there, initrd.img and vmlinuz were linked to initrd.img-2.6.27-15-generic and vmlinuz-2.6.27-15-generic respectively.  The problem is that they should have been pointing to 2.6.27-14, and not 15.  So, I fixed the links with a simple:

Code:

ln -s -f /usr/pluto/diskless/MD#/boot/initrd.img-2.6.27-14-generic initrd.img

I did the same for vmlinuz and this issue was no longer an issue!
Now, to figure out why this occurred on a MD that was functioning just fine...
I have my suspicions that when I rebuilt a disk image through the web admin for another MD, it somehow caused this problem.

[ThinkCentre]

I know it's an old one but I have the exact same problem as described by Levster. I setup my system, attempt network boot and get a list of errors ending with
"...
...
Trying to load pxelinux.cfg/default
Unable to locate configuration file"

This happens on all computers I attempt to network boot. I am running one of the most recent snapshots. I assume it's caused by the network being setup incorrectly. I have a single network card and integrated modem/wireless router.

The way I prepare to network boot is as follows. Does it seem correct? I tried to follow http://wiki.linuxmce.org/index.php/Network_Settings

To ENABLE a Network Boot
On the Core
1.   Advanced >> Network Settings >> Use DHCP
2.   Computing >>Web Admin >> Advanced >> Network >> Network Settings >>
   -Check Enable DHCP Server Proxies 192.168.80.1 to 192.168.80.128
   -Check Provide IP addresses for anonymous devices not in Pluto Database 192.168.80.129 to 192.168.80.254
   -Choose “Obtain an IP address from DHCP server”
On the router
3.   DHCP settings >> Turn DHCP off >> Save and reboot

On the MD
4.   Plug in LAN cable. Right click on the LAN connection, select Properties >> Select Internet Protocol Version 4, click Properties >> Choose “Use the following IP Address
-IP: 192.168.1.101
-Subnet Mask: 225.225.225.0
-Default Gateway: 192.168.1.1
And “Use the following DNS server address   
              -Preferred DNS: 192.168.1.1
   -Alternate DNS: xxx.xxx.xx.xx (this is from my ISP)

5.   At startup ensure BIOS is set to Network boot first preference