Install Gentoo via PXE

[gliverman]

I want to be able to install Gentoo via PXE boot rather than having to tote a minimal cd with me each time. I found that if I put the following in my PXE menu that it works except for the fact that mounting the NFS path fails:

[gliverman]

I just tried to setup the 2010.1 live dvd the same way and got the same errors... here is the PXE menu entry for that one:

[gliverman]

Minimal CD works fine now
As it turns out, the failure was caused by "ip=dhcp" in the append line... it seems this is left over from an older version of BusyBox according to https://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=178756

Live DVD failing
I now have a new issue... the 2010.1 Live DVD fails / hangs during boot as illustrated below:

[gliverman]

Put this in your PXE Menu to boot the minimal CD:

[philiboy]

There are actually a couple ways to do this, but this method below does not require any pre-built custom kernels or NFS. When finished, you’ll just have two files on your TFTP server that contain the entire installation media.

If you’re preparing this from a Gentoo system, emerge File-Slurp. You’ll need to mount the Gentoo 2007 Minimal Install CD and pull off three file from it:

isolinux/gentoo
isolinux/gentoo.igz
image.squashfs

Copy gentoo into your TFTP directory, and the other two files into a temporary directory. In this temporary directory, create a script (let’s call it new_script) that contains the following:

#!/usr/bin/perl -w
#

use strict;

use File::Slurp qw(slurp);

my $ifile = slurp($ARGV[0], binmode=> ':raw');
my $newfile;
my $i=1;
my @newfiles = split(/TRAILER!!!/,$ifile);
`mkdir $ARGV[0].dir`;

foreach $newfile (@newfiles)
{
$newfile =~ s/^[\0]*//;
if($newfile){
open F, "> ./$ARGV[0].dir/$i";
$newfile = $newfile . "TRAILER!!!";
for(my $null=22*16+21;$null>0;$null--){
$newfile = $newfile . "\0";
}
print F $newfile;
close F;
print "$i\n";
`cd $ARGV[0].dir; cpio -i -H newc < $i; rm $i; cd ..`;
$i++;
}
}

Run the following commands:

mv gentoo.igz gentoo.gz
gunzip gentoo.gz
chmod +x new_script
./new_script gentoo
cd gentoo.dir
mkdir mnt
mkdir mnt/cdrom
cp ../image.squashfs mnt/cdrom/

Create a file called init.patch that contains:

--- init 2008-03-22 01:10:58.000000000 -0600
+++ init 2008-03-22 01:14:27.000000000 -0600
@@ -283,11 +283,6 @@
[ ! -e ${NEW_ROOT}/dev/tty1 ] && mknod ${NEW_ROOT}/dev/tty1 c 4 1
fi

- if [ "${REAL_ROOT}" != "/dev/nfs" ] && [ "${LOOPTYPE}" != "sgimips" ]
- then
- bootstrapCD
- fi
-
if [ "${REAL_ROOT}" = '' ]
then
echo -n -e "${WARN}>>${NORMAL}${BOLD} No bootable medium found. Waiting for new devices"
@@ -387,7 +382,7 @@
else
bad_msg "Block device ${REAL_ROOT} is not a valid root device..."
REAL_ROOT=""
- got_good_root=0
+ got_good_root=1
fi
done

@@ -489,7 +484,6 @@
fi
fi

- cache_cd_contents
# Setup the loopback mounts

if [ "${LOOPTYPE}" = 'normal' ]
@@ -503,7 +497,7 @@
elif [ "${LOOPTYPE}" = 'squashfs' ]
then
good_msg 'Mounting squashfs filesystem'
- mount -t squashfs -o loop,ro ${NEW_ROOT}/mnt/cdrom/${LOOPEXT}${LOOP} ${NEW_ROOT}/mnt/livecd
+ mount -t squashfs -o loop,ro /mnt/cdrom/${LOOPEXT}${LOOP} ${NEW_ROOT}/mnt/livecd

test_success 'Mount filesystem'
FS_LOCATION='mnt/livecd'

Run this:

cp init init.orig
patch -p0 --ignore-whitespace < init.patch
find . -print | cpio -o -H newc > ../gentoo.igz
cd ..

Copy the new gentoo.igz file into your TFTP directory. Use the following options in your PXE config:

kernel gentoo
append initrd=gentoo.igz root=/dev/ram0 init=/linuxrc loop=/image.squashfs looptype=squashfs cdroot=1 real_root=/

Boot your computer via PXE and that’s it.

signature spam deleted -- admin

[gliverman]

Philiboy, that would eliminate the need for NFS for the minimal disk but I don't think it would help with the Live DVD since (AFAIK) the files would be too large to TFTP seeing as image.squashfs from the live dvd is over 2GB. Any ideas on that one? Thanks for the help!!!