Bryan J Smith (bjs(a)redhat.com) said:
- Netboot/disklessrc
The current approach in system-config-netboot for Diskless clients is
legacy (not even nash, so it looks like some re-use from circa-2003 or
even earlier), but the "disklessrc" approach with they way it loads in
the Diskless initrd "just works." Not only does it "just work," but
it
works for RHEL 5 (possibly earlier).
This code is dead (long-term.) Note that mkinitrd itself has support
for NFS boot, iSCSI, etc.
- LiveCD/mayflower
I've looked at the LiveCD tools now, including the mayflower initrd
builder. I've also looked at the results. A lot of newer developments
make assumptions on newer Anaconda/PyKickstart releases of post-RHEL 5
Fedora releases. I would definitely be interested in anyone who has
concise information on what features are being used, otherwise, I'm
looking at them as non-requirements (with my focus on RHEL 5).
There is a livecd-tools branch for RHEL 5 - I believe Rahul maintains
that.
I've noted a few things I really don't care for, like dumping
all
modules in /lib/modules of the initrd, instead of maintaining some sort
of tree like netboot/disklessrc does/uses.
Attempting to catalog a list of network/storage module is a long-term
failure. We do a hack in anaconda by looking for modules that reference
certain needed symbols (register_net_device, register_block, etc.), but
it's still a hack.
- What I want (should force myself to do)
What I want -- aka what I should force myself to do so I more than a fat
guy just eating up oxygen ;) -- is try to build a new, flexible initrd
creator (call it "snitrd" out of my frustration ;) and . I don't know
if there are other projects out there trying to do this, so please let
me know if someone already has been tackling this.
The concept is basically this (putting the Anaconda install-to-disc to
the side for now) ...
- Can generate a Diskless initrd (disklessrc init, various network)
- Can generate a ISO initrd (like mayflower's init, various fs/etc...)
- Can generate a Disk initrd (more than just squashfs? new init)
- Can generate a "Super" initrd (take various boot init= options)
Additionally, I was going to add the following options in the new "Disk"
initrd init (think flash/embedded):
- Option to compare image checksums to TFTP server, update if different
- Option to boot diskless if local boot fails (trap failures/set flag)
Does anyone else think this is a good idea? I don't think the Diskless,
ISO and basic Disk initrd/init options are too difficult. The more
embedded options could come later, as could the RHEL 5
Anaconda/PyKickstart v. newer Fedora differences/detections as well.
Right now I could really use a single toolset to do at least some of the
above. And I'm having to choose between the limited/stagnant
Netboot/disklessrc and the more leading Fedora-centric LiveCD/mayflower.
Anyone think I'm off my rocker? Over-complicating a simple issue?
Don't know the first thing of what I'm talking about? Etc...? ;)
Honestly, I'm not sure what we really need right now is Yet Another
initrd project. There's talk of a new upstream one that can hopefully
be shared by multiple distros, but that's still a ways off from production.
In the meantime, it's probably better to just fix what's there.
Bill