F10 NFS Install Query

[Dr J Austin]

Hi

Previous versions of Fedora just needed the .iso file
on the server for an NFS install

For F10 I needed to mount the file in loopback and copy the contents of
the DVD to a separate directory before
anaconda could find it - is this a bug or a feature?

Does anyone know if NFS exporting a loop mounted file
is possible.  I could not see it when I tried this.

I did not want to fiddle with my main server too much
Would the nohide option in /etc/exports do the trick ?

John

[Roger Heflin]

John Austin wrote:
> Hi
>
> Previous versions of Fedora just needed the .iso file
> on the server for an NFS install
>
> For F10 I needed to mount the file in loopback and copy the contents of
> the DVD to a separate directory before
> anaconda could find it - is this a bug or a feature?
>
> Does anyone know if NFS exporting a loop mounted file
> is possible.  I could not see it when I tried this.
>
> I did not want to fiddle with my main server too much
> Would the nohide option in /etc/exports do the trick ?
>
> John

I have done that before with non-iso filesystem in a file,
it has been a while though.

One thing to remember is you have to exportfs -r again after you
have mounted the ISO, otherwise only the underlying empty directory
is being exported from the original exportfs run.

[Dr J Austin]

On Wed, 2008-11-26 at 12:48 -0600, Roger Heflin wrote:
> John Austin wrote:
> > Hi
> >
> > Previous versions of Fedora just needed the .iso file
> > on the server for an NFS install
> >
> > For F10 I needed to mount the file in loopback and copy the contents of
> > the DVD to a separate directory before
> > anaconda could find it - is this a bug or a feature?
> >
> > Does anyone know if NFS exporting a loop mounted file
> > is possible.  I could not see it when I tried this.
> >
> > I did not want to fiddle with my main server too much
> > Would the nohide option in /etc/exports do the trick ?
> >
> > John
>
> I have done that before with non-iso filesystem in a file,
> it has been a while though.
>
> One thing to remember is you have to exportfs -r again after you
> have mounted the ISO, otherwise only the underlying empty directory
> is being exported from the original exportfs run.

Thanks for the reply

I have now tried this but it failed :-(
I will try "doing it properly?" with a separate export
and maybe "nohide" when my server is available to
play with.

John

[Simon Andrews]

John Austin wrote:
> Hi
>
> Previous versions of Fedora just needed the .iso file
> on the server for an NFS install
>
> For F10 I needed to mount the file in loopback and copy the contents of
> the DVD to a separate directory before
> anaconda could find it - is this a bug or a feature?

I had the same problem.  Anaconda appends /images/image.img to the end 
of the NFS path, which then fails.

This must be a big - I fail to see how it could be considered a feature.

Someone else reported that you can bypass the problem by specifying your 
nfs directory in the initial boot options:

method=nfsiso:example.com:/some/dir/

This worked for me.

Simon.

[Simon Andrews]

Simon Andrews wrote:
> John Austin wrote:
> > Hi
> >
> > Previous versions of Fedora just needed the .iso file
> > on the server for an NFS install
> >
> > For F10 I needed to mount the file in loopback and copy the contents of
> > the DVD to a separate directory before
> > anaconda could find it - is this a bug or a feature?
>
> I had the same problem.  Anaconda appends /images/image.img to the end 
> of the NFS path, which then fails.
>
> This must be a big - I fail to see how it could be considered a feature.
>
> Someone else reported that you can bypass the problem by specifying your 
> nfs directory in the initial boot options:
>
> method=nfsiso:example.com:/some/dir/
>
> This worked for me.

I've reported this as a bug BZ#473251

Feel free to add comments...

[Dr J Austin]

On Thu, 2008-11-27 at 11:20 +0000, Simon Andrews wrote:
> Simon Andrews wrote:
> > John Austin wrote:
> > > Hi
> > >
> > > Previous versions of Fedora just needed the .iso file
> > > on the server for an NFS install
> > >
> > > For F10 I needed to mount the file in loopback and copy the contents of
> > > the DVD to a separate directory before
> > > anaconda could find it - is this a bug or a feature?
> >
> > I had the same problem.  Anaconda appends /images/image.img to the end 
> > of the NFS path, which then fails.
> >
> > This must be a big - I fail to see how it could be considered a feature.
> >
> > Someone else reported that you can bypass the problem by specifying your 
> > nfs directory in the initial boot options:
> >
> > method=nfsiso:example.com:/some/dir/
> >
> > This worked for me.
>
> I've reported this as a bug BZ#473251
>
> Feel free to add comments...

Thanks for the feed back

I have tried the method=nfsiso:example.com:/some/dir/ when using the
main DVD to boot from - that failed.
Finger trouble maybe, or a difference when booting the CD image
suggested?

I have successfully tried the method suggested by
Alex Viskovatoff in the other thread

It worked perfectly

I think it probably only needs the documentation updating
to say put the install.img file in an images subdirectory for an NFS
install

John

[Simon Andrews]

John Austin wrote:
> On Thu, 2008-11-27 at 11:20 +0000, Simon Andrews wrote:
> > Simon Andrews wrote:
> > > Someone else reported that you can bypass the problem by specifying your 
> > > nfs directory in the initial boot options:
> > >
> > > method=nfsiso:example.com:/some/dir/
> > >
> > > This worked for me.
> >
> > I've reported this as a bug BZ#473251
>
> I have tried the method=nfsiso:example.com:/some/dir/ when using the
> main DVD to boot from - that failed.

That's odd - I've done this (using the netinstall image rather than the 
install DVD) on a few machines now and it's worked every time.  I'd be 
surprised if the install DVD acted differently to the netinstall CD in 
this regard.

How does it fail when you try this?  Is it still looking for an /images/ 
directory?
> I have successfully tried the method suggested by
> Alex Viskovatoff in the other thread

Glad you managed to get it working somehow.
> I think it probably only needs the documentation updating
> to say put the install.img file in an images subdirectory for an NFS
> install

I disagree.  You shouldn't need to do this - and it make it a right pain 
if (as I have) you have an i386 and and x86_64 iso in the same nfs 
directory.  Anaconda can handle this situation and I suspect that not 
being able to do this through the askmethod route will turn out to be a 
simple bug.

Simon.

[Dr J Austin]

On Thu, 2008-11-27 at 13:26 +0000, Simon Andrews wrote:
> John Austin wrote:
> > On Thu, 2008-11-27 at 11:20 +0000, Simon Andrews wrote:
> > > Simon Andrews wrote:
> > > > Someone else reported that you can bypass the problem by specifying your 
> > > > nfs directory in the initial boot options:
> > > >
> > > > method=nfsiso:example.com:/some/dir/
> > > >
> > > > This worked for me.
> > >
> > > I've reported this as a bug BZ#473251
> >
> > I have tried the method=nfsiso:example.com:/some/dir/ when using the
> > main DVD to boot from - that failed.
>
> That's odd - I've done this (using the netinstall image rather than the 
> install DVD) on a few machines now and it's worked every time.  I'd be 
> surprised if the install DVD acted differently to the netinstall CD in 
> this regard.
>
> How does it fail when you try this?  Is it still looking for an /images/ 
> directory?

Yes it comes up and asks again for the NFS server and directory and then
says it has been looking for images dir.
I would have expected it not to ask again and take the info
from the command line
> > I have successfully tried the method suggested by
> > Alex Viskovatoff in the other thread
>
> Glad you managed to get it working somehow.
> > I think it probably only needs the documentation updating
> > to say put the install.img file in an images subdirectory for an NFS
> > install
>
> I disagree.  You shouldn't need to do this - and it make it a right pain 
> if (as I have) you have an i386 and and x86_64 iso in the same nfs 
> directory.  Anaconda can handle this situation and I suspect that not 
> being able to do this through the askmethod route will turn out to be a 
> simple bug.
>
> Simon.

OK point taken !
Just that it won't happen until F11

John

[mike cloaked]

John Austin-3 wrote:
> > That's odd - I've done this (using the netinstall image rather than the 
> > install DVD) on a few machines now and it's worked every time.  I'd be 
> > surprised if the install DVD acted differently to the netinstall CD in 
> > this regard.
> >
> > How does it fail when you try this?  Is it still looking for an /images/ 
> > directory?
>
> Yes it comes up and asks again for the NFS server and directory and then
> says it has been looking for images dir.
> I would have expected it not to ask again and take the info
> from the command line
> > > I have successfully tried the method suggested by
> > > Alex Viskovatoff in the other thread
> >
> > Glad you managed to get it working somehow.
> > > I think it probably only needs the documentation updating
> > > to say put the install.img file in an images subdirectory for an NFS
> > > install
> >
> > I disagree.  You shouldn't need to do this - and it make it a right pain 
> > if (as I have) you have an i386 and and x86_64 iso in the same nfs 
> > directory.  Anaconda can handle this situation and I suspect that not 
> > being able to do this through the askmethod route will turn out to be a 
> > simple bug.
> >
> > Simon.
>
> OK point taken !
> Just that it won't happen until F11
>
> John

This seems to be the same set of problems that I am encountering with a hard
drive install. So it is not just nfs installs that are affected by this
anaconda change.

[Gordon Messmer]

Simon Andrews wrote:
> John Austin wrote:
> > I think it probably only needs the documentation updating
> > to say put the install.img file in an images subdirectory for an NFS
> > install
>
> I disagree.  You shouldn't need to do this - and it make it a right pain 
> if (as I have) you have an i386 and and x86_64 iso in the same nfs 
> directory.  Anaconda can handle this situation and I suspect that not 
> being able to do this through the askmethod route will turn out to be a 
> simple bug.

Chris Lumens of Red Hat indicated in bug 466992 that anacanda can *not* 
handle this situation any more.  The change was intentional.  If you 
have your ISOs in the same location, you can specify the location of 
stage2.img using the stage2= parameter.  It's probably easier to just 
keep different architectures' isos in separate directories (along with 
images/install.img) though.

[Simon Andrews]

Gordon Messmer wrote:
> Simon Andrews wrote:
> > John Austin wrote:
> > > I think it probably only needs the documentation updating
> > > to say put the install.img file in an images subdirectory for an NFS
> > > install
> >
> > I disagree.  You shouldn't need to do this - and it make it a right 
> > pain if (as I have) you have an i386 and and x86_64 iso in the same 
> > nfs directory.  Anaconda can handle this situation and I suspect that 
> > not being able to do this through the askmethod route will turn out to 
> > be a simple bug.
>
> Chris Lumens of Red Hat indicated in bug 466992 that anacanda can *not* 
> handle this situation any more.  The change was intentional.  If you 
> have your ISOs in the same location, you can specify the location of 
> stage2.img using the stage2= parameter.  It's probably easier to just 
> keep different architectures' isos in separate directories (along with 
> images/install.img) though.

Except that this is patently untrue as I have upgraded several servers 
to F10 doing exactly this, using the F10 netinstall ISO and an NFS 
server serving just the DVD isos.  The bug I opened about this has been 
closed as NOTABUG.

Can anyone enlighten me as to how this behaviour is better than what we 
had before?  Is there a benefit to jumping through these extra hoops 
that I'm missing?  I'm honestly willing to be persuaded, but I can't see 
any advantage to these extra steps which are being insisted on.

Simon.