how to deploy via NFS?

[javip]

the WIKI shows very little information on this.
i have a WDS/syslinux hybrid pxe environment serving up Windows Deployment Services and multiple
linux utilities and distros with no problems.

the problem is we're going to deploy ubermix to about 3000 laptops and i haven't been able to even get it to boot from NFS.

NFS sharing is setup on windows server 2008 r2 and permissions are blown wide open for testing purposes.
here's my menu entry.

Code: [Select]


LABEL ubermix
            MENU LABEL Ubermix (notworking)
            kernel linux\ubermix\vmlinuz
            append initrd=linux/ubermix/Uberinitrd.gz storage=***.***.***.***:/nixnfs/ img=ubermix nofog

the WIKI doesn't state which kernel to use. the error msg i receive is :

Code: [Select]

*Checking Operating System ...........Linux
*Checking CPU cores .......................1
*Send Method..................................NFS

###
#
#       AN ERROR HAS BEEN DETECTED!
###

Fatal Error: Unknown Request type :: NULL

###
#
#     Computer will reboot in 1 minute.
###

that's all. no specific error or anything.

can anyone help? i've been working on this issue for a week with no progress.

[javip]

anyone? is there anyone that can give some kind of support for this distro?
or point me in the right direction as to why i can boot various other distros from NFS except this one.

[urkomasse]

I don't have experience with using PXE boot over NFS of full-blown distros.

But one thing to keep in mind is that this is not your regular "distro". I suspect the whole "Factory reset" system, with its dual root partition with UnionFS, could be making PXE+NFS booting quite a challenge.

See here, scroll down a little to find a diagram of how it's all set up:
http://www.ubermix.org/about.html

For a scenario like this, I may be more worthwhile to figure out how to install the Ubermix launcher over standard Ubuntu, since the recovery feature would not really be needed, right?

[javip]

recovery most definitely would be needed since these students are being taught how to handle and manage their own laptops.

our staff will deploy to over 4000 netbooks. preferably over NFS. currently we can put a 20GB windows WIM image down to a machine in about 4 minutes over our current setup and my WDS setup.

in this scenario using flash drives is actually a hindrance.

was there a version of UBERMIX that worked over NFS? i tried 0.9 and that one gave me the same errors. if there is a previous build that worked, i could use that and just apply updates to bring it up to date with an NFS working kernel and initrd.

[urkomasse]

Are all the netbooks going to have the same specs?

In our case, to have the hibernation feature pre-enabled, we installed Ubermix to one netbook, then made a Clonezilla image of that. We then used USB sticks with Clonezilla and the image on them. It was incredibly fast, and plugging the usb sticks was easier than plugging in all the netbooks to ethernet wires for PXE boot.

Not sure if you could get the Ubermix installer to start through PXE and NFS, but I am quite sure you can get Clonezilla to do that, and automate it to deploy the Clonezilla image of Ubermix that you create based on one of your netbooks.