Boot problems with NFS

[Per Dalgas Jakobsen]

Hi Brenda,

In this case I'm using a "real" monitor on target (until it's up and
running anyway). Should I make a kernel commandline to ensure that?

I will not mess with inittab until I can get my hello-world-program to
execute as expected (as replacement for /sbin/init).

I tried to set the parallel port pins with my hello-world program, and
this caused something strange: Now the program does not seem to end (No
kernel panic message).

I compiled it with -O2 (and -O3) to ensure inline macro substitution of
the "outb()" macro. I also tried to make it as inline assembly; same
result: no kernel panic message. It IS a priviledged instruction I
guess, so could this be some permission thing?


Hmmm, should the nfsroot have special permissions?

~Per


On Sat, 2006-02-18 at 10:15 -0500, Brenda J. Butler wrote:
> 
> It looks like the output is working just fine, but going
> to the wrong place.  Sounds like you need to set the kernel
> command-line option:
> 
> console=ttyS0
> 
> (pick the appropriate device for "console=" - this example is
> for putting the console on a serial line)
> 
> and/or:  configure the applications in /etc/inittab (like mingetty,
> etc) to use the right console.  Not sure of the right syntax
> at the moment, hopefully it's not too hard for you to find out.
> 
> For future debugging:
> 
> If you have leds, you can change your init program to flash
> them if you want to be absolutely certain your init program is
> being called.  Or if you have network connection, open a port
> (ie, listen on it).  You can tell it's open by nmapping from
> the other side.
> 
> cheerio,
> bjb
> 
> 
> On Sat, Feb 18, 2006 at 02:11:05PM +0100, Per Dalgas Jakobsen wrote:
> > Hi,
> > 
> > I'm trying to get a remote-booting PC up and running with
> > buildroot/busybox, but I have ran into some trouble...
> > 
> > The system remote boots fine up to this:
> > ---
> > VFS: Mounted root (nfs filesystem).
> > Freeing unused kernel memory: 272K freed
> > ---
> > And then it just sits there.
> > 
> > I have tried to replace /sbin/init with a "hello world" program:
> > No "Hello world" text on monitor, but now the kernel panics due to init
> > exiting (fair enough). Just for fun I tried to let "hello world" print
> > out its text one million times before exiting; No "Hello world" text and
> > the kernel panic message appears after a reasonable time (a couple of
> > seconds).
> > 
> > So it seems like the kernel is fetched fine from tftp.
> > It also seems like the nfs file system is mounted ok
> > (changing /sbin/init certainly have some effect).
> > 
> > Any ideas?
> > I have described the setup below. Please let me know if I have done
> > something stupid.
> > 
> > ~Per
> > 
> > -------------------
> > Client setup:
> > *) i586 PC with Etherboot 5.0.6 in BIOS payload.
> > *) Etherboot modified to look for a DHCP-server at port 1067
> > *) CompactFlash disk attached but NOT used (yet).
> > 
> > Boot-server setup:
> > *) i686 PC running Debian testing.
> > *) DHCP server listening on port 1067
> > *) tftp server running.
> > 
> > (Alternative DHCP port 1067 used because primary DHCP-server must not be
> > touched).
> > 
> > 
> > I'm using Buildroot snapshot 20060213:
> > *) Target architecture: i386 - variant: i586
> > *) Linux-2.4.31 (patched to allow for gcc-4.0.2 compiler)
> > *) NOT using uClibc snapshot (uClibc-0.9.28)
> > *) Binutils-2.16.1
> > *) gcc-4.0.2
> > *) Multilib support enabled, no large file support
> > *) Busybox minimal system with daily snapshot (fetched 20060213)
> > *) No extra packages selected.
> > *) ext2 root
> > 
> > Kernel build steps:
> > $ make ARCH=i386 CROSS_COMPILE=i586-linux- bzImage
> > $ cp arch/i386/boot/bzImage <tftp-server-path>
> > $ mkelf-linux --rootdir=<nfs-kernel-root> \
> > --ip=<CLIENTIP>:<SERVERIP>:<GATEWAYIP>:<NETMASK>:<HOSTNAME> \
> > arch/i386/boot/bzImage > <tftp-kernel-image>
> > --------------------
> > 
> > 
> > _______________________________________________
> > busybox mailing list
> > busybox at busybox.net
> > http://busybox.net/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/busybox
> ---end quoted text---
> 
> ----- End forwarded message -----
> _______________________________________________
> busybox mailing list
> busybox at busybox.net
> http://busybox.net/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/busybox