| 1 |
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| 2 | Testbox Imaging (Backup / Restore)
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| 3 | ==================================
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| 4 |
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| 5 |
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| 6 | Introduction
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| 7 | ------------
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| 8 |
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| 9 | This document is explores deploying a very simple drive imaging solution to help
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| 10 | avoid needing to manually reinstall testboxes when a disk goes bust or the OS
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| 11 | install seems to be corrupted.
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| 12 |
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| 13 |
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| 14 | Definitions / Glossary
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| 15 | ======================
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| 16 |
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| 17 | See AutomaticTestingRevamp.txt.
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| 18 |
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| 19 |
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| 20 | Objectives
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| 21 | ==========
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| 22 |
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| 23 | - Off site, no admin interaction (no need for ILOM or similar).
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| 24 | - OS independent.
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| 25 | - Space and bandwidth efficient.
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| 26 | - As automatic as possible.
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| 27 | - Logging.
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| 28 |
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| 29 |
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| 30 | Overview of the Solution
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| 31 | ========================
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| 32 |
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| 33 | Here is a brief summary:
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| 34 |
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| 35 | - Always boot testboxes via PXE using PXELINUX.
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| 36 | - Default configuration is local boot (hard disk / SSD)
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| 37 | - Restore/backup action triggered by machine specific PXE config.
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| 38 | - Boots special debian maintenance install off NFS.
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| 39 | - A maintenance service (systemd style) does the work.
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| 40 | - The service reads action from TFTP location and performs it.
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| 41 | - When done the service removes the TFTP machine specific config
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| 42 | and reboots the system.
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| 43 |
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| 44 | Maintenance actions are:
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| 45 | - backup
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| 46 | - backup-again
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| 47 | - restore
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| 48 | - refresh-info
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| 49 | - rescue
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| 50 |
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| 51 | Possible modifier that indicates a subset of disk on testboxes with other OSes
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| 52 | installed. Support for partition level backup/restore is not explored here.
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| 53 |
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| 54 |
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| 55 | How to use
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| 56 | ----------
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| 57 |
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| 58 | To perform one of the above maintenance actions on a testbox, run the
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| 59 | ``testbox-pxe-conf.sh`` script::
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| 60 |
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| 61 | /mnt/testbox-tftp/pxeclient.cfg/testbox-pxe-conf.sh 10.165.98.220 rescue
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| 62 |
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| 63 | Then trigger a reboot. The box will then boot the NFS rooted debian image and
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| 64 | execute the maintenance action. On success, it will remove the testbox hex-IP
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| 65 | config file and reboot again.
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| 66 |
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| 67 |
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| 68 | Storage Server
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| 69 | ==============
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| 70 |
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| 71 | The storage server will have three areas used here. Using NFS for all three
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| 72 | avoids extra work getting CIFS sharing right too (NFS is already a pain).
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| 73 |
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| 74 | 1. /export/testbox-tftp - TFTP config area. Read-write.
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| 75 | 2. /export/testbox-backup - Images and logs. Read-write.
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| 76 | 3. /export/testbox-nfsroot - Custom debian. Read-only, no root squash.
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| 77 |
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| 78 |
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| 79 | TFTP (/export/testbox-tftp)
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| 80 | ============================
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| 81 |
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| 82 | The testbox-tftp share needs to be writable, root squashing is okay.
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| 83 |
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| 84 | We need files from both PXELINUX and SYSLINUX to make this work now. On a
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| 85 | debian system, the ``pxelinux`` and ``syslinux`` packages needs to be
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| 86 | installed. We actually do this further down when setting up the nfsroot, so
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| 87 | it's possible to get them from there by postponing this step a little. On
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| 88 | debian 8.6.0 the PXELINUX files are found in ``/usr/lib/PXELINUX`` and the
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| 89 | SYSLINUX ones in ``/usr/lib/syslinux``.
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| 90 |
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| 91 | The initial PXE image as well as associated modules comes in three variants,
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| 92 | BIOS, 32-bit EFI and 64-bit EFI. We'll only need the BIOS one for now.
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| 93 | Perform the following copy operations::
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| 94 |
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| 95 | cp /usr/lib/PXELINUX/pxelinux.0 /mnt/testbox-tftp/
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| 96 | cp /usr/lib/syslinux/modules/*/ldlinux.* /mnt/testbox-tftp/
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| 97 | cp -R /usr/lib/syslinux/modules/bios /mnt/testbox-tftp/
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| 98 | cp -R /usr/lib/syslinux/modules/efi32 /mnt/testbox-tftp/
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| 99 | cp -R /usr/lib/syslinux/modules/efi64 /mnt/testbox-tftp/
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| 100 |
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| 101 |
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| 102 | For simplicity, all the testboxes boot using good old fashioned BIOS, no EFI.
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| 103 | However, it doesn't really hurt to be prepared.
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| 104 |
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| 105 | The PXELINUX related files goes in the root of the testbox-tftp share. (As
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| 106 | mentioned further down, these can be installed on a debian system by running
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| 107 | ``apt-get install pxelinux syslinux``.) We need the ``*pxelinux.0`` files
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| 108 | typically found in ``/usr/lib/PXELINUX/`` on debian systems (recent ones
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| 109 | anyway). It is possible we may need one ore more fo the modules [1]_ that
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| 110 | ships with PXELINUX/SYSLINUX, so do copy ``/usr/lib/syslinux/modules`` to
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| 111 | ``testbox-tftp/modules`` as well.
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| 112 |
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| 113 |
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| 114 | The directory layout related to the configuration files is dictated by the
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| 115 | PXELINUX configuration file searching algorithm [2]_. Create a subdirectory
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| 116 | ``pxelinux.cfg/`` under ``testbox-tftp`` and create the world readable file
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| 117 | ``default`` with the following content::
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| 118 |
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| 119 | PATH bios
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| 120 | DEFAULT local-boot
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| 121 | LABEL local-boot
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| 122 | LOCALBOOT
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| 123 |
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| 124 | This will make the default behavior to boot the local disk system.
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| 125 |
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| 126 | Copy the ``testbox-pxe-conf.sh`` script file found in the same directory as
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| 127 | this document to ``/mnt/testbox-tftp/pxelinux.cfg/``. Edit the copy to correct
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| 128 | the IP addresses near the top, as well as any linux, TFTP and PXE details near
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| 129 | the bottom of the file. This script will generate the PXE configuration file
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| 130 | when performing maintenance on a testbox.
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| 131 |
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| 132 |
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| 133 | Images and logs (/export/testbox-backup)
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| 134 | =========================================
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| 135 |
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| 136 | The testbox-backup share needs to be writable, root squashing is okay.
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| 137 |
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| 138 | In the root there must be a file ``testbox-backup`` so we can easily tell
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| 139 | whether we've actually mounted the share or are just staring at an empty mount
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| 140 | point directory.
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| 141 |
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| 142 | The ``testbox-maintenance.sh`` script maintains a global log in the root
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| 143 | directory that's called ``maintenance.log``. Errors will be logged there as
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| 144 | well as a ping and the action.
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| 145 |
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| 146 | We use a directory layout based on dotted decimal IP addresses here, so for a
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| 147 | server with the IP 10.40.41.42 all its file will be under ``10.40.41.42/``:
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| 148 |
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| 149 | ``<hostname>``
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| 150 | The name of the testbox (empty file). Help finding a testbox by name.
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| 151 |
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| 152 | ``testbox-info.txt``
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| 153 | Information about the testbox. Starting off with the name, decimal IP,
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| 154 | PXELINUX style hexadecimal IP, and more.
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| 155 |
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| 156 | ``maintenance.log``
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| 157 | Maintenance log file recording what the maintenance service does.
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| 158 |
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| 159 | ``disk-devices.lst``
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| 160 | Optional list of disk devices to consider backuping up or restoring. This is
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| 161 | intended for testboxes with additional disks that are used for other purposes
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| 162 | and should touched.
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| 163 |
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| 164 | ``sda.raw.gz``
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| 165 | The gzipped raw copy of the sda device of the testbox.
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| 166 |
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| 167 | ``sd[bcdefgh].raw.gz``
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| 168 | The gzipped raw copy sdb, sdc, sde, sdf, sdg, sdh, etc if any of them exists
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| 169 | and are disks/SSDs.
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| 170 |
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| 171 |
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| 172 | Note! If it turns out we can be certain to get a valid host name, we might just
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| 173 | switch to use the hostname as the directory name instead of the IP.
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| 174 |
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| 175 |
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| 176 | Debian NFS root (/export/testbox-nfsroot)
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| 177 | ==========================================
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| 178 |
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| 179 | The testbox-nfsroot share should be read-only and must **not** have root
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| 180 | squashing enabled. Also, make sure setting the set-uid-bit is allowed by the
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| 181 | server, or ``su` and ``sudo`` won't work
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| 182 |
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| 183 | There are several ways of creating a debian nfsroot, but since we've got a
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| 184 | tool like VirtualBox around we've just installed it in a VM, prepared it,
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| 185 | and copied it onto the NFS server share.
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| 186 |
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| 187 | As of writing debian 8.6.0 is current, so a minimal 64-bit install of it was
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| 188 | done in a VM. After installation the following modifications was done:
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| 189 |
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| 190 | - ``apt-get install pxelinux syslinux initramfs-tools zip gddrescue sudo joe``
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| 191 | and optionally ``apt-get install smbclient cifs-utils``.
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| 192 |
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| 193 | - ``/etc/default/grub`` was modified to set ``GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT`` to
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| 194 | ``""`` instead of ``"quiet"``. This allows us to see messages during boot
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| 195 | and perhaps spot why something doesn't work on a testbox. Regenerate the
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| 196 | grub configuration file by running ``update-grub`` afterwards.
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| 197 |
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| 198 | - ``/etc/sudoers`` was modified to allow the ``vbox`` user use sudo without
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| 199 | requring any password.
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| 200 |
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| 201 | - Create the directory ``/etc/systemd/system/[email protected]`` and create
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| 202 | the file ``noclear.conf`` in it with the following content::
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| 203 |
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| 204 | [Service]
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| 205 | TTYVTDisallocate=no
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| 206 |
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| 207 | This stops getty from clearing VT1 and let us see the tail of the boot up
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| 208 | messages, which includes messages from the testbox-maintenance service.
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| 209 |
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| 210 | - Mount the testbox-nfsroot under ``/mnt/`` with write privileges. (The write
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| 211 | privileges are temporary - don't forget to remove them later on.)::
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| 212 |
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| 213 | mount -t nfs myserver.com:/export/testbox-nfsroot
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| 214 |
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| 215 | Note! Adding ``-o nfsvers=3`` may help with some NTFv4 servers.
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| 216 |
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| 217 | - Copy the debian root and dev file system onto nfsroot. If you have ssh
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| 218 | access to the NFS server, the quickest way to do it is to use ``tar``::
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| 219 |
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| 220 | tar -cz --one-file-system -f /mnt/testbox-maintenance-nfsroot.tar.gz . dev/
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| 221 |
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| 222 | An alternative is ``cp -ax . /mnt/. && cp -ax dev/. /mnt/dev/.`` but this
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| 223 | is quite a bit slower, obviously.
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| 224 |
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| 225 | - Edit ``/etc/ssh/sshd_config`` setting ``PermitRootLogin`` to ``yes`` so we can ssh
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| 226 | in as root later on.
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| 227 |
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| 228 | - chroot into the nfsroot: ``chroot /mnt/``
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| 229 |
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| 230 | - ``mount -o proc proc /proc``
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| 231 |
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| 232 | - ``mount -o sysfs sysfs /sys``
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| 233 |
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| 234 | - ``mkdir /mnt/testbox-tftp /mnt/testbox-backup``
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| 235 |
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| 236 | - Recreate ``/etc/fstab`` with::
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| 237 |
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| 238 | proc /proc proc defaults 0 0
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| 239 | /dev/nfs / nfs defaults 1 1
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| 240 | 10.42.1.1:/export/testbox-tftp /mnt/testbox-tftp nfs tcp,nfsvers=3,noauto 2 2
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| 241 | 10.42.1.1:/export/testbox-backup /mnt/testbox-backup nfs tcp,nfsvers=3,noauto 3 3
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| 242 |
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| 243 | We use NFS version 3 as that works better for our NFS server and client,
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| 244 | remove if not necessary. The ``noauto`` option is to work around mount
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| 245 | trouble during early bootup on some of our boxes.
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| 246 |
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| 247 | - Do ``mount /mnt/testbox-tftp && mount /mnt/testbox-backup`` to mount the
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| 248 | two shares. This may be a good time to execute the instructions in the
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| 249 | sections above relating to these two shares.
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| 250 |
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| 251 | - Edit ``/etc/initramfs-tools/initramfs.conf`` and change the ``MODULES``
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| 252 | value from ``most`` to ``netboot``.
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| 253 |
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| 254 | - Append ``aufs`` to ``/etc/initramfs-tools/modules``. The advanced
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| 255 | multi-layered unification filesystem (aufs) enables us to use a
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| 256 | read-only NFS root. [3]_ [4]_ [5]_
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| 257 |
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| 258 | - Create ``/etc/initramfs-tools/scripts/init-bottom/00_aufs_init`` as
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| 259 | an executable file with the following content::
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| 260 |
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| 261 | #!/bin/sh
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| 262 | # Don't run during update-initramfs:
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| 263 | case "$1" in
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| 264 | prereqs)
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| 265 | exit 0;
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| 266 | ;;
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| 267 | esac
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| 268 |
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| 269 | modprobe aufs
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| 270 | mkdir -p /ro /rw /aufs
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| 271 | mount -t tmpfs tmpfs /rw -o noatime,mode=0755
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| 272 | mount --move $rootmnt /ro
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| 273 | mount -t aufs aufs /aufs -o noatime,dirs=/rw:/ro=ro
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| 274 | mkdir -p /aufs/rw /aufs/ro
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| 275 | mount --move /ro /aufs/ro
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| 276 | mount --move /rw /aufs/rw
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| 277 | mount --move /aufs /root
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| 278 | exit 0
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| 279 |
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| 280 | - Update the init ramdisk: ``update-initramfs -u -k all``
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| 281 |
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| 282 | Note! It may be necessary to do ``mount -t tmpfs tmpfs /var/tmp`` to help
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| 283 | this operation succeed.
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| 284 |
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| 285 | - Copy ``/boot`` to ``/mnt/testbox-tftp/maintenance-boot/``.
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| 286 |
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| 287 | - Copy the ``testbox-maintenance.sh`` file found in the same directory as this
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| 288 | document to ``/root/scripts/`` (need to create the dir) and make it
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| 289 | executable.
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| 290 |
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| 291 | - Create the systemd service file for the maintenance service as
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| 292 | ``/etc/systemd/system/testbox-maintenance.service`` with the content::
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| 293 |
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| 294 | [Unit]
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| 295 | Description=Testbox Maintenance
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| 296 | After=network.target
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| 297 | [email protected]
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| 298 |
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| 299 | [Service]
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| 300 | Type=oneshot
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| 301 | RemainAfterExit=True
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| 302 | ExecStart=/root/scripts/testbox-maintenance.sh
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| 303 | ExecStartPre=/bin/echo -e \033%G
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| 304 | ExecReload=/bin/kill -HUP $MAINPID
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| 305 | WorkingDirectory=/tmp
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| 306 | Environment=TERM=xterm
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| 307 | StandardOutput=journal+console
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| 308 |
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| 309 | [Install]
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| 310 | WantedBy=multi-user.target
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| 311 |
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| 312 | - Enable our service: ``systemctl enable /etc/systemd/system/testbox-maintenance.service``
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| 313 |
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| 314 | - xxxx ... more ???
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| 315 |
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| 316 | - Before leaving the chroot, do ``mount /proc /sys /mnt/testbox-*``.
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| 317 |
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| 318 |
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| 319 | - Testing the setup from a VM is kind of useful (if the nfs server can be
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| 320 | convinced to accept root nfs mounts from non-privileged clinet ports):
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| 321 |
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| 322 | - Create a VM using the 64-bit debian profile. Let's call it "pxe-vm".
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| 323 | - Mount the TFTP share somewhere, like M: or /mnt/testbox-tftp.
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| 324 | - Reconfigure the NAT DHCP and TFTP bits::
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| 325 |
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| 326 | VBoxManage setextradata pxe-vm VBoxInternal/PDM/DriverTransformations/pxe/AboveDriver NAT
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| 327 | VBoxManage setextradata pxe-vm VBoxInternal/PDM/DriverTransformations/pxe/Action mergeconfig
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| 328 | VBoxManage setextradata pxe-vm VBoxInternal/PDM/DriverTransformations/pxe/Config/TFTPPrefix M:/
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| 329 | VBoxManage setextradata pxe-vm VBoxInternal/PDM/DriverTransformations/pxe/Config/BootFile pxelinux.0
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| 330 |
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| 331 | - Create the file ``testbox-tftp/pxelinux.cfg/0A00020F`` containing::
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| 332 |
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| 333 | PATH bios
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| 334 | DEFAULT maintenance
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| 335 | LABEL maintenance
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| 336 | MENU LABEL Maintenance (NFS)
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| 337 | KERNEL maintenance-boot/vmlinuz-3.16.0-4-amd64
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| 338 | APPEND initrd=maintenance-boot/initrd.img-3.16.0-4-amd64 ro ip=dhcp aufs=tmpfs \
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| 339 | boot=nfs root=/dev/nfs nfsroot=10.42.1.1:/export/testbox-nfsroot
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| 340 | LABEL local-boot
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| 341 | LOCALBOOT
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| 342 |
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| 343 |
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| 344 | Troubleshooting
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| 345 | ===============
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| 346 |
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| 347 | ``PXE-E11`` or something like ``No ARP reply``
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| 348 | You probably got the TFTP and DHCP on different machines. Try move the TFTP
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| 349 | to the same machine as the DHCP, then the PXE stack won't have to do any
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| 350 | additional ARP resolving. Google results suggest that a congested network
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| 351 | could use the ARP reply to get lost. Our suspicion is that it might also be
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| 352 | related to the PXE stack shipping with the NIC.
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| 353 |
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| 354 |
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| 355 |
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| 356 | -----
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| 357 |
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| 358 | .. [1] See http://www.syslinux.org/wiki/index.php?title=Category:Modules
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| 359 | .. [2] See http://www.syslinux.org/wiki/index.php?title=PXELINUX#Configuration
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| 360 | .. [3] See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aufs
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| 361 | .. [4] See http://shitwefoundout.com/wiki/Diskless_ubuntu
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| 362 | .. [5] See http://debianaddict.com/2012/06/19/diskless-debian-linux-booting-via-dhcppxenfstftp/
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| 363 |
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| 364 |
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| 365 | -----
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| 366 |
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| 367 | :Status: $Id: TestBoxImaging.txt 98106 2023-01-17 22:43:07Z vboxsync $
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| 368 | :Copyright: Copyright (C) 2010-2023 Oracle Corporation.
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