Re: Diskless NetBSD HOW-TO (http://www.netbsd.org/docs/network/netboot/)

[Alexander Schreiber <als%thangorodrim.ch@localhost>]

Hi,

On Thu, Oct 22, 2020 at 08:04:25PM +0000, Palle Lyckegaard wrote:
> Hello.
> 
> Trying to get a sparc64/sun4u system to work as a diskless client (with an
> Armbian Linux as server-side part of the etup), I noticed some outdated
> sections in the Diskless how-to.
> 
> The NFS subsection (http://www.netbsd.org/docs/network/netboot/nfs.html)
> indicates that "/export/client/swap" should be exported as a diretory, but
> this does not make sense since "/export/client/swap" is the actual swap
> file.

That doc has aged badly: "Most versions of linux only implement NFS2".
That hasn't been true for _many_ years and indeed, by now the reverse
is true. Most Linux distros prefer NFSv4, will provide NFSv3, but have
NFSv2 disabled by default. Which plays merry hell with netbooting NetBSD
off a Linux server, because that _needs_ NFSv2 (at least for a sparc64
client), making the addition of RPCNFSDOPTS="--nfs-version 2,3,4" to the
appropriate config necessary. Yes, it took me staring at packet captures
to figure that one out.

> The files subsection (http://www.netbsd.org/docs/network/netboot/files.html)
> notes that /etc/fstab should contain a entry like
> 
> "nfsserver:/export/client/swap   none  swap  sw,nfsmntpt=/swap"
> 
> but according to diskless(8) the entry should be like
> 
> "/swap                           none swap sw 0 0"
> 
> which seems to work better.
> 
> Comments on this?

I just created /swap on the NFS root and enabled that as file-based
swap, seems to work, but my v100 usually doesn't touch it since it
is maxed out at 2 GB RAM and rarely goes into swap.

Kind regards,
            Alex.
-- 
"Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and
 looks like work."                                      -- Thomas A. Edison