I'd like my machine to boot off a NAS box across the network, using NFS
for the root file system. Since the box does not support tftp, I've
installed a small flash drive for it to boot off and use as /boot.


Following the instructions at
http://myrddin.org/howto/debian-kernel-recompiling/ I've added support
in the kernel for...

CONFIG_IP_PNP=y
CONFIG_IP_PNP_DHCP=y
CONFIG_NFS_FS=y
CONFIG_NFS_V3=y
CONFIG_NFS_V4=y
CONFIG_NFS_DIRECTIO=y
CONFIG_ROOT_NFS=y

... and the network card as per
http://www.faqs.org/docs/Linux-mini/NFS-Root.html


I then modified grub to use the following kernel command line:

root=/dev/nfs rw nfsroot=192.168.2.254:/mnt/ide4/telvin-root ip=dhcp


And modified /etc/fstab to refer to the new location of /.

The machine successfully boots, configures the network card and then
hangs for some time before generating an error message about /dev/nfs
not existing.

I can mount the share on other machines, and rpcinfo and showmount
produce the following:

$ rpcinfo -p 192.168.2.254
program vers proto port
100000 2 tcp 111 portmapper
100000 2 udp 111 portmapper
100003 2 udp 2049 nfs
100003 3 udp 2049 nfs
100003 2 tcp 2049 nfs
100003 3 tcp 2049 nfs
100021 1 udp 1027 nlockmgr
100021 3 udp 1027 nlockmgr
100021 4 udp 1027 nlockmgr
100021 1 tcp 2801 nlockmgr
100021 3 tcp 2801 nlockmgr
100021 4 tcp 2801 nlockmgr
100005 1 udp 926 mountd
100005 1 tcp 929 mountd
100005 2 udp 926 mountd
100005 2 tcp 929 mountd
100005 3 udp 926 mountd
100005 3 tcp 929 mountd

$ showmount -e 192.168.2.254
Exports list on 192.168.2.254:
/mnt/ide4/home 192.168.2.0/255.255.255.0
/mnt/ide4/telvin-root *
/mnt/ide4/public *

The logs on the NAS suggest that it's not even trying to connect to the
share, which I've confirmed with a packet sniffer.


The instructions at Documentation/nfsroot.txt haven't shed any light...

I've wasted far too much time on this and it's driving me NUTS! I'd be
very grateful for any suggestions!

Take care,

Ben


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Problem solved! Turns out I was missing some basic steps:

From https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Installation/OnNFSDriveWithLocalBoot

I just needed to edit /etc/initramfs-tools/initramfs.conf to change
BOOT=local to BOOT=nfs and then regenerate the initramfs image with
update-initramfs -k all -c


And now it works! :-)))))

Ben


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