[LINUX] HOW-TO create a XBMC server for diskless PXE network booting clients

This is great. Thanks for sharing

Im going to give it a go tonight. I'll let you know how i get on.

cheers

Little bug: the provisioning files are going to the wrong directory (/var/lib/xbmc-diskless/overlay instead of /var/lib/xbmc-diskless/overlay/provision).

bugfix build will be online within an hour

Awesome idea and thanks for your work to say first, i tried to get this up and running but I'm no advanced linux user. I set up the whole thing on my lucid server with the dnsmasq script posted here, the clients recognize the server but times out it seems, the daemon.log shows me this


I guess i have to adjust some permissions to the tftpd? Can someone point me in the right direction?

I removed the quiet and splash from the /var/lib/tftpboot/pxelinux.0
to see whats going on, it looks like its start loading the kernel and get's a 'connection refused on ndb mount' maybe this helps a little more debuging this.

Quote:the clients recognize the server but times out it seems, the daemon.log

Not sure what the problem is or if there are any specific requirements in this setup.
Generally I have noticed that dnsmasq is a bit sensitive how the menu is setup:

Quote:pxe-service=X86PC, "Boot from network", pxelinux

etc.

If you edited that, start over with the sample.

more info:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1606910

I guess I'm a step further, It's stopping with a 'connection refused' when the nbd is trying to mount the root fs....

what does "xbmc-diskless.sh check" say?

everything looks good


xbmc-diskless.sh check
Loading the default configuration
Checking your configuration:
image present: yes
inetd running: yes
tftpd running: yes
tftpd (69) listening: yes
nfsd running: yes
mountd running: yes
statd running: yes
portmap running: yes
/etc/exports has overlay: yes
portmap (111) listening: yes
nfs (2049) listening: yes

I tried telneting into port 2000 from the nbd... working

Oh wait, just noticed somehow it tries to connect to 192.168.1.1 which is my router, i guess this have something to do with the dnsmasq... I'll see if I could add the host somehow to the config !?

this is also wrong:
by default, xbmc-diskless pxe boot files are installed in /var/lib/tftpboot/xbmc-netboot. you're probably serving the wrong file. you should change that in the dnsmasq config too.

edit:
nvm that, they're not installed there anymore. I removed that from the global config a while ago

I guess i wouldn't be able to boot anything if the pxelinux.0 file wasn't found.

I don't get it...

eth0 configured at 192.168.1.136:192.168.1.1:192.168.1.1:255.255.255.0:
Done.
Begin: Mounting root file system...
Begin: Running /scripts/nfs-top ...
Done.
Begin: mounting the NDB root ...
Error: Connect: Connection refused

I'll make it a bit more verbose, let it tell where it's connecting to.

try this in the meantime and see if you can connect:
add "break=Xnbd" to the kernel parameters and reboot your diskless box.
it'll break the booting process just before mounting the nbd root

type this in the console:
replace xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx by the ip of your server.

if that works, see if you can ls /rofs and if your root shows up.