How to do Diskless boot in CentOS 5

[Hunter-Man]

Hello friends, I am using CentOS5 at my place and I am attempting to do a diskless boot for a set of machines. From my side I have done almost every steps but I am facing an error during the boot. The screen hangs at the booting and shows the below given errors:

• Write protecting the kernel read-only data: 504k
• Failed to execute /init
• Failed to execute disklessrc.
• Kernel Panic - not syncing: No init found. Try passing init= option to kernel.

I am using below pxelinux.cfg file for the system:

• default centos5ssi
• label centos5ssi
• kernel centos5ssi/vmlinuz
• append initrd=centos5ssi/initrd.img root=/dev/ram0 init=disklessrc NFSROOT=192.168.0.2:/opt/diskless/CentOS/x86_64 ramdisk_size=32768 ETHERNET=eth0 SNAPSHOT=node0

Can anyone help me with this error, thanks a lot in advance.

[Ernesto4]

Hey I have done through to your problem, according to me you might not be using DHCP and TFTP set up during client boot. Using this set up client get IP address from server, it pass the vmlinuz and initrd.img file. You must mount the initrd.img file after extraction and must check that “init” file is present on top level directory or not in disklessrc. The path for this should be /usr/share/system-config-netboot/diskless/disklessrc, which should be present on server. and keep in mind that busybox-anaconda is installed on both client and server. just follow above mentioned method and see your problem is fixing or not. All the best!

[mesterio]

Hello, well looking at the issue I am completely agredd with the above post. This is the common issue in diskless boot. There is command like “bug @ system-config-betboot-cmd-rpm”. It means that your preparation is perferct. So just check for this command. When you are done with the above command and execute it and see that you are getting below logs:

[root@dc-iso system-config-netboot]# /usr/sbin/pxeos -a -p NFS -D 1 -k 2.6.18-164.el5PAE -s 192.168.1.1 -L /home/tftpboot/diskless/i386/CentOS5.3_sr1500_BIOS/ BIOS1500
[root@dc-iso system-config-netboot]# /usr/sbin/pxeboot -a -O BIOS1500 192.168.1.1

[root@dc-iso system-config-netboot]# cp /tftboot/linux-install/BIOS1500/* /tftpboot/diskless/i386/CentOS5.3_sr1500_BIOS/
If you are getting the same that means your problem is solved.

Note: the IP which you are watching is of my PC, you will get your IP as per registered to your PC.

[DanielV]

Hey I have seen your problem, and I can say that if above post doesn’t help you then just slightly modify “pxelinux.cfg/default” with the below mentioned log, it will help you to solve your problem. just do the necessary changes to it. All the Best!

[root@dc-iso system-config-netboot]# vim /tftpboot/pxelinux.cfg/default

# Intel Utilites
MENU BEGIN Intel Platform Utilites
MENU TITLE Intel Platform Utilites
...
LABEL sr1500bios
MENU LABEL Intel sr1500 BIOS Upgrade (BIOS98,BMC65,FAL48)
kernel diskless/i386/CentOS5.3_sr1500_BIOS/vmlinuz
append initrd=diskless/i386/CentOS5.3_sr1500_BIOS/initrd.img root=/dev/ram0 init=disklessrc NFSROOT=192.168.1.1:/tftpboot/diskless/i386/CentOS5.3_sr1500_BIOS ramdisk_size=30000 ETHERNET=eth0 ramdisk_blocksize=1024

Note: the processor name which are watching in mine, you will get your processor name when you will do this step.

[Zhankana_n]

Hey I was facing the same error on my friend’s PC also. It is about the system-config-netboot-cmd-rpm, you need to install it manually from Red Hat repo. When you are using CentOS 5.5, the logs of the above mentioned code will be as follows after manula installation. Just try this it will be more than enough to solve this error. All the Best

$ yum info system-config-netboot-cmd
Loaded plugins: fastestmirror
Installed Packages
Name : system-config-netboot-cmd
Arch : noarch
Version : 0.1.45.1
Release : 1.el5
Size : 1.3 M
Repo : installed
Summary : network booting/install configuration utility
License : GPLv2+
Description: system-config-netboot is a utility which allows you to configure diskless environments and network installations.
: This package contains only command line utilities.

[Hunter-Man]

Hello everyone, I just want to say thanks to you all for giving such a great solutions. After reading your post I came to know that there are many things missing in my system. I have turned my diskless booting into DHCP and TFTP. Also I check with above mentioned all methods, but the above idea of manual installation of system-config-netboot-cmd-rpm worked for me, and I got the same above mentioned logs. Now I am happily able to use the diskless booting on my system.