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

[Hector <netsparc64%visteya.org@localhost>]

On Fri, 23 Oct 2020 10:20:04 +1100
matthew green <mrg%eterna.com.au@localhost> wrote:

> > > 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".  
> 
> yeah, it really is.  we added normal swap to nfs file a long time
> ago, not really that much longer than the "nfsmntpt" mount point
> option.  i've just been using plain swap files for decades.
> 
> it would be great if someone updated this doc.
> 
> > 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.  
> 
> this sounds more like a build-time option we can probably fix.
> eg, ofwboot and kernel just need to do the right thing and try
> nfsv3 before nfsv2.
> 
> anyone want to look at fixing it for us? :)
> 
> 
> .mrg.

About 10 years ago I also noticed some misinformation in that document.
I found this mailing list thread which discussed a particular error.

 http://mail-index.netbsd.org/port-i386/2001/09/25/0000.html

And in particular this message:

 http://mail-index.netbsd.org/port-i386/2001/09/25/0008.html