[Users] Pxeboot

[Li, David]

Ok, I think we are on the same page now regarding stateless node.  It looks like the achipel diff you just pulled in might be able to do this. But I can't quite make it out what the kernel option should be.  Is it "stateless=1"?

David

>-----Original Message-----
>From: Mike Burns [mailto:mburns at redhat.com]
>Sent: Wednesday, February 08, 2012 3:27 PM
>To: Li, David
>Cc: Perry Myers; users at ovirt.org
>Subject: Re: [Users] Pxeboot
>
>On Wed, 2012-02-08 at 15:19 -0800, Li, David wrote:
>> Perry,
>>
>> I am glad you brought this up.
>> I 'd be perfectly happy to run the root fs entirely in RAM. In fact that would
>be ideal for me. It's just I am not quite sure how to use pxeboot to achieve
>this.
>>
>> I am doing a test now using the tftpboot files created from the iso.
>> As far as I see, the kernel boot options (pxelinux.cfg/default) has:
>>
>> root=live:/ovirt-node-image-2.2.2-1.1.fc16.iso
>>
>> With this I can only pxeboot to the intall screen.  What should I use to let the
>kernel mount the root fs in memory? Something like root=/dev/ram0?
>>
>> David
>
>It's not currently possible with ovirt-node.  That's the whole stateless feature
>that we outlined.  Once we actually have it implemented, it will be something
>along the lines of adding "stateless" to the kernel commandline.
>
>Mike
>>
>>
>> >-----Original Message-----
>> >From: Perry Myers [mailto:pmyers at redhat.com]
>> >Sent: Wednesday, February 08, 2012 2:54 PM
>> >To: Mike Burns
>> >Cc: Li, David; users at ovirt.org
>> >Subject: Re: [Users] Pxeboot
>> >
>> >On 02/08/2012 05:03 PM, Mike Burns wrote:
>> >> On Wed, 2012-02-08 at 13:46 -0800, Li, David wrote:
>> >>> Mike,
>> >>>
>> >>> If I understand this correctly, today I should be able to pxeboot
>> >>> and nfs mount the root fs from a remote server.  Apart from
>> >>> setting up the pxe stuff, I 'd have to populate the ovirt node
>> >>> root fs on the server
>> >>> - perhaps steal it from a disk install.  In other words I am
>> >>> concerned about the point from which the kernel starts to execute
>> >>> /init script (in the initramfs) to the point /init is able to
>> >>> mount the final root fs from a remote server.
>> >>
>> >> No, there is no way to set this up currently in ovirt-node.  You
>> >> could install using a remote iscsi lun if you have a hardware iscsi
>> >> HBA, but there isn't a way to mount a remote nfs share as the root fs.
>> >>
>> >> Supporting a remote NFS share as the root fs isn't even something
>> >> that requested as an RFE at this point or on the roadmap as far as
>> >> I'm aware.
>> >>
>> >> It sounds like what you're really looking for is a shared root fs
>> >> that multiple hosts could use.  This is something that we will
>> >> probably look into eventually, but it's not on the immediate roadmap.
>> >
>> >Given that the rootfs of oVirt Node is fairly small and in a truly
>> >stateless environment would just run out of system RAM, there's no
>> >real reason to try to do a shared NFS based rootfs.  It's an
>> >unnecessary complication I think, if the end goal is to move to truly
>stateless.
>> >
>> >For larger systems where the rootfs is on the order of GB's, shared
>> >root may make more sense.
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