Check your syslogs on the nfs server. Might be getting a permission error somewhere.
Sean
On 2011-04-10, at 6:53 AM, Robert Dyck rbdyck2@shaw.ca wrote:
What we're seeing: We use either a floppy with gPXE to simulate network boot, or a CD with gPXE, or a few machines can be configured in BIOS to do a real network boot. The client displays that it does connect to the Clonezilla server, it does go through DRBL (Diskless Remote Boot for Linux) so it appears the TFTP process works. We do get a brief text menu that shows it will attempt to boot into Clonezilla client, then a series of messages scroll off the display indicating Linux start-up. However, we get a message that appears to say something about failure to mount a file system. The exact problem isn't clear since the messages scroll off the client machine's screen too quickly to read before it halts. We do have a Linux machine that acts as our router, but it has it's DHCP stack configured to point to the Clonezilla server ("next server" and "filename" parameters set in dhcpd.conf). Since we do get DRBL messages complete with a menu indicating it tries to start Clonezilla client, it shouldn't be the router. We have checked that NFS is running on the Clonezilla server. Help.
Thanks, Rob Dyck
--- Mike pfaiffer wrote:
Lindsay (the CLL supervisor) has asked if I could ask the folks at the MUUG if there is anyone in the club with Clonezilla experience who could show up for a Friday to go over our set up and see what we are missing. There are two of us working on the server and between the two of us we can almost get it working consistently. What we are doing should work (and did work for six machines a month ago). So far it looks like the machines are doing a diskless boot into Linux without installing the disk image. Rob may have more information than this. When it works it works like a champ. When it doesn't, we don't have a clue why... At least one of the five of us will be at Tuesdays meeting...
Later Mike
Roundtable mailing list Roundtable@muug.mb.ca http://www.muug.mb.ca/mailman/listinfo/roundtable
You can also modify the small linux system that gets shoved to the clients - I had to change it at one point because of video drivers. This might allow you get a console on the machine.
I'm assuming you've tried to hit alt+f1 etc to switch to a console and it didn't work?
Also, is it specific machines that cause this reaction, or is it sporadic?
Rob
On Sun, Apr 10, 2011 at 9:37 AM, Sean Walberg swalberg@gmail.com wrote:
Check your syslogs on the nfs server. Might be getting a permission error somewhere.
Sean
On 2011-04-10, at 6:53 AM, Robert Dyck rbdyck2@shaw.ca wrote:
What we're seeing: We use either a floppy with gPXE to simulate network boot, or a CD with gPXE, or a few machines can be configured in BIOS to
do a
real network boot. The client displays that it does connect to the Clonezilla server, it does go through DRBL (Diskless Remote Boot for
Linux)
so it appears the TFTP process works. We do get a brief text menu that
shows
it will attempt to boot into Clonezilla client, then a series of messages scroll off the display indicating Linux start-up. However, we get a
message
that appears to say something about failure to mount a file system. The exact problem isn't clear since the messages scroll off the client
machine's
screen too quickly to read before it halts. We do have a Linux machine
that
acts as our router, but it has it's DHCP stack configured to point to the Clonezilla server ("next server" and "filename" parameters set in dhcpd.conf). Since we do get DRBL messages complete with a menu
indicating
it tries to start Clonezilla client, it shouldn't be the router. We have checked that NFS is running on the Clonezilla server. Help.
Thanks, Rob Dyck
--- Mike pfaiffer wrote:
Lindsay (the CLL supervisor) has asked if I could ask the folks at the MUUG if there is anyone in the club with Clonezilla experience who could show up for a Friday to go over our set up and see what we are missing. There are two of us working on the server and between the two of us we can almost get it working consistently. What we are doing should work (and did work for six machines a month ago). So far it looks like the machines are doing a diskless boot into Linux without installing the disk image. Rob may have more information than this. When it works it works like a champ. When it doesn't, we don't have a clue why... At least one of the five of us will be at Tuesdays meeting...
Later Mike
Roundtable mailing list Roundtable@muug.mb.ca http://www.muug.mb.ca/mailman/listinfo/roundtable
Roundtable mailing list Roundtable@muug.mb.ca http://www.muug.mb.ca/mailman/listinfo/roundtable
It was sporadic. Last Friday one of our team tried to network boot 3 IBM ThinkCentres. One successfully connected to Clonezilla, the other two had this problem. Then we corrected the IP address in dhcpd.conf on the router and rebooted it. When Lawrence tried to start Clonezilla again, all three machines got the error. I had also tried to change node name: we set the machine name for the Clonezilla server to "clonezilla" but the install script set the node name for DRBL to "drbl". So we tried to change the node name in dhcpd.conf on the clonezilla server to "clonezilla", then restart the machine. That didn't change any behaviour. The node name may be stored elsewhere, so to make it consistent we changed it back to "drbl" and changed the machine name to also "drbl". So that server now has a consistent machine name. No observed change in behaviour. However, after all this messing around it now consistently fails.
I didn't try alt-F1, but then I didn't install the GUI on the server. It's strictly CUI. The router is actually running Fedora, the Clonezilla server is running Ubuntu Server 10.10 Maverick. The client does get to a command prompt when it halts. I did try "ls" and it does show the file system of the server. That's the other thing: why does it give an error about failure to mount a file system when it does get the file system?
Rob Dyck
--- Robert Keizer wrote:
You can also modify the small linux system that gets shoved to the clients
- I had to change it at one point because of video drivers. This might allow you get a console on the machine.
I'm assuming you've tried to hit alt+f1 etc to switch to a console and it
didn't work?
Also, is it specific machines that cause this reaction, or is it sporadic?
Rob
On the client, boot it up and do a dmesg. This is specific to that client - not the server. That should tell you whats going on - that would be my first step. Without knowing whats going on with the client its hard to diagnose a problem.
Rob
On Sun, Apr 10, 2011 at 11:50 AM, Robert Dyck rbdyck2@shaw.ca wrote:
It was sporadic. Last Friday one of our team tried to network boot 3 IBM ThinkCentres. One successfully connected to Clonezilla, the other two had this problem. Then we corrected the IP address in dhcpd.conf on the router and rebooted it. When Lawrence tried to start Clonezilla again, all three machines got the error. I had also tried to change node name: we set the machine name for the Clonezilla server to "clonezilla" but the install script set the node name for DRBL to "drbl". So we tried to change the node name in dhcpd.conf on the clonezilla server to "clonezilla", then restart the machine. That didn't change any behaviour. The node name may be stored elsewhere, so to make it consistent we changed it back to "drbl" and changed the machine name to also "drbl". So that server now has a consistent machine name. No observed change in behaviour. However, after all this messing around it now consistently fails.
I didn't try alt-F1, but then I didn't install the GUI on the server. It's strictly CUI. The router is actually running Fedora, the Clonezilla server is running Ubuntu Server 10.10 Maverick. The client does get to a command prompt when it halts. I did try "ls" and it does show the file system of the server. That's the other thing: why does it give an error about failure to mount a file system when it does get the file system?
Rob Dyck
--- Robert Keizer wrote:
You can also modify the small linux system that gets shoved to the
clients
- I had to change it at one point because of video drivers. This might
allow you get a console on the machine.
I'm assuming you've tried to hit alt+f1 etc to switch to a console and it
didn't work?
Also, is it specific machines that cause this reaction, or is it
sporadic?
Rob
Roundtable mailing list Roundtable@muug.mb.ca http://www.muug.mb.ca/mailman/listinfo/roundtable
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Robert Dyck -
Robert Keizer -
Sean Walberg