Diskless setup

[trossman]

I saw this in the pxelinux.tmpl "/usr/pluto/diskless/%MOON_ID%"

1) I do not have anything in the /usr/pluto/diskless directory.  Should I?  What should it be?

2) the Fiire guys told me to put some custom archives in /usr/pluto/install/via.  How do I ensure these archives are used when my MD pxe boots?  What am I missing?

thanks in advance
Andrew

[radmofo]

boot your MD to the network (settings in the bios) It will then get an address from the core (if its connected) then it will boot and after a few minutes should go to the setup wizard. Follow the steps and you will have to go to the core and do a Quick reload of the router. Then your MD should boot right up. If you need to specify different drivers after its all u and running go to your PLUTO ADMIN and select media directors and scroll to that one and change the drivers.

[trossman]

The bios is setup right.  It does a PXE boot, contacts dhcp (running on my core) and then gets the tftp file /tftpboot/pxelinux and appears to load /tftpboot/default/vmlinuz.  It then does a bunch of things - gets an ip address, MD identifier, and runs a script /scripts/nfs-premount, then tries to run Diskless_Setup.sh then returns Diskless Setup Failed.  I poked around and found that there should be a /usr/pluto/diskless/%MD_ID%  - but /usr/pluto/diskless is empty.  Again, I think I have some serious core problems - any suggestions?

[radmofo]

Go to admin-media directors-find the md, click rebuild image, wait a while, click update and do a router reload then try to boot your md.

[trossman]

I did reinstall (from dl dvd) so it was pretty quick.  But then my sound card config got hosed up again  - but I'll worry about that later.  Now the core comes up ok and when I rebuild the MD I do in fact get a directory under /usr/pluto/diskless - hurray!  But it still does not work :-(.  The MD still barfs when it tries to run Diskless_Setup.sh reporting "Diskless Setup Failed".

Anyone have some tips how to debug this?  Any logs I should look at?  The other alternative is to try putting my own distro on a usb flash drive.  Suggestions welcome.

BTW, I really like the hardware - small, low power, quiet, and a decent price for the performance http://www.wdlsystems.com/modperl/view_services.cgi?r=detail&prod_num=1EBX48T&aisle_id=1016
"VIA Eden Esther 1.2GHz processor, 512MB DDR2, MPEG4/WMV9 decoding accelerator, 1x EIDE, 1x 10/100 LAN, 1x PS/2 K/B, 1x PS/2 Mouse, 2x USB 2.0 Ports (One in front), TV-out/S-Video (no VGA). Use with EmbedDisk horizontal left RoHS"

I tried using the fiire station via drivers - but that didn't seem to work.  Although I think it's failing before we even get to the drivers.  Anyone who knows the PXE boot sequence for pluto?
thanks in advance

p.s. sorry for the duplicate posting - seems two problems converged after one forced the reinstall of the core

Andrew

[pigdog]

May not be the same problem for you but...

with my system on the first attempt I am announced to the router but the "Diskless setup failed" message is generated.  My Core system runs i386 software.  My diskless MD is architecture amd64.  You can see the architecture message just a couple of lines above the failure message.

If this is your problem then on the core system open admin website and select Devices/Media Director.  Under the Device column you'll see the architecture field set to amd64.  Edit this to i386 and on the bottom of the page click the update button.

Restart the diskless MD.

Hope this helps.

[trossman]

Thanks, but my MD is a via which I believe is i386 compatible. 

[pigdog]

I'm thinking of building a MD with Via chipsets,  I read some stuff about them needing "Unichrome" software loaded.

Try this http://forum.linuxmce.org/index.php?topic=2519.msg11991#msg11991.

Maybe that'll help.  I've no Via experience - yet.

Sorry I can't help.

[totallymaxed]

I'm thinking of building a MD with Via chipsets,  I read some stuff about them needing "Unichrome" software loaded.

Try this http://forum.linuxmce.org/index.php?topic=2519.msg11991#msg11991.

Maybe that'll help.  I've no Via experience - yet.

Sorry I can't help.

Hmmm... I would strongly suggest holding off on Via based MD currently. At present the drivers just do not deliver what LinuxMCE needs for smooth UI2 performance. This may change in the near future with Via's new effort to open up their drivers.

If you like a challenge then fine... but if you just want to get your LinusMCE system working without too much fuss... then go with nVidia or Intel GMA950 or GMA3000 currently.

All the best

Andrew

[totallymaxed]

I saw this in the pxelinux.tmpl "/usr/pluto/diskless/%MOON_ID%"

1) I do not have anything in the /usr/pluto/diskless directory.  Should I?  What should it be?

2) the Fiire guys told me to put some custom archives in /usr/pluto/install/via.  How do I ensure these archives are used when my MD pxe boots?  What am I missing?

thanks in advance
Andrew

Hmmm... surely the Fiire guys are the people to help you with this ;-)

Andrew

[totallymaxed]

The bios is setup right.  It does a PXE boot, contacts dhcp (running on my core) and then gets the tftp file /tftpboot/pxelinux and appears to load /tftpboot/default/vmlinuz.  It then does a bunch of things - gets an ip address, MD identifier, and runs a script /scripts/nfs-premount, then tries to run Diskless_Setup.sh then returns Diskless Setup Failed.  I poked around and found that there should be a /usr/pluto/diskless/%MD_ID%  - but /usr/pluto/diskless is empty.  Again, I think I have some serious core problems - any suggestions?

Its more than likely that your NIC's chipset is not supported in the initramfs see here; http://wiki.linuxmce.org/index.php/Unrecognized_NIC

All the best

Andrew

[trossman]

Kewl - I suppose this would make sense that somewhere between downloading the kernel and booting properly the NIC driver will be reloaded by the downloaded kernel.  But this is a realtek 8100B which is pretty common.  I will follow your link to see if this resolves this problem.

Another thing that may actually suggest something else is the problem is that I created a kubuntu 7.10 usb flash drive boot and it seemed to hang during boot.  The usb drive worked on other machines.  Then I made an ubuntu 8.04 image on the usb drive and it works with the md hardware.  While I try out your suggestion, if anything else comes to mind, feel free to shout.  Unfortunately I have to reinstall my core from zero, again.


Anyone know if webmin or NXServer causes a problem with MCE?

Thanks
Andrew