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Mounting the root filesystem via NFS (nfsroot)
==============================================

Written 1996 by Gero Kuhlmann <gero@gkminix.han.de>



If you want to use a diskless system, as an X-terminal or printer
server for example, you have to put your root filesystem onto a
non-disk device. This can either be a ramdisk (see initrd.txt in
this directory for further information) or a filesystem mounted
via NFS. The following text describes on how to use NFS for the
root filesystem. For the rest of this text 'client' means the
diskless system, and 'server' means the NFS server.




1.) Enabling nfsroot capabilities
    -----------------------------

In order to use nfsroot you have to select support for NFS during
kernel configuration. Note that NFS cannot be loaded as a module
in this case. The configuration script will then ask you whether
you want to use nfsroot, and if yes what kind of auto configuration
system you want to use. Selecting both BOOTP and RARP is safe.




2.) Kernel command line
    -------------------

When the kernel has been loaded by a boot loader (either by loadlin,
LILO or a network boot program) it has to be told what root fs device
to use, and where to find the server and the name of the directory
on the server to mount as root. This can be established by a couple
of kernel command line parameters:


root=/dev/nfs

  This is necessary to enable the pseudo-NFS-device. Note that it's not a
  real device but just a synonym to tell the kernel to use NFS instead of
  a real device.


nfsroot=[<server-ip>:]<root-dir>[,<nfs-options>]

  If the nfsroot parameter is NOT give on the command line, the default
  "/tftpboot/%s" will be used.

  <server-ip>   Specifies the IP address of the NFS server. If this field
                is not given, the default address as determined by the
                nfsaddrs variable (see below) is used. One use of this
                parameter is for example to allow using different servers
                for RARP and NFS. Usually you can leave this blank.

  <root-dir>    Name of the directory on the server to mount as root. If
                there is a "%s" token in the string, the token will be
                replaced by the ASCII-representation of the client's IP
                address.

  <nfs-options> Standard NFS options. All options are separated by commas.
                If the options field is not given, the following defaults
                will be used:
                        port            = as given by server portmap daemon
                        rsize           = 1024
                        wsize           = 1024
                        timeo           = 7
                        retrans         = 3
                        acregmin        = 3
                        acregmax        = 60
                        acdirmin        = 30
                        acdirmax        = 60
                        flags           = hard, nointr, noposix, cto, ac


nfsaddrs=<client-ip>:<server-ip>:<gw-ip>:<netmask>:<hostname>:<device>:<autoconf>

  If this parameter is missing on the kernel command line, all fields are
  assumed to be empty, and the below mentioned defaults apply. In general
  this means that the kernel tries to configure everything using both
  RARP and BOOTP (depending on what has been enabled during kernel confi-
  guration, and if both what protocol answer got in first).

  <client-ip>   IP address of the client. If empty, the address will either
                be determined by RARP or BOOTP. What protocol is used de-
                pends on what has been enabled during kernel configuration
                and on the <autoconf> parameter. If this parameter is not
                empty, neither RARP nor BOOTP will be used.

  <server-ip>   IP address of the NFS server. If RARP is used to determine
                the client address and this parameter is NOT empty only
                replies from the specified server are accepted. To use
                different RARP and NFS server, specify your RARP server
                here (or leave it blank), and specify your NFS server in
                the nfsroot parameter (see above). If this entry is blank
                the address of the server is used which answered the RARP
                or BOOTP request.

  <gw-ip>       IP address of a gateway if the server in on a different
                subnet. If this entry is empty no gateway is used and the
                server is assumed to be on the local network, unless a
                value has been received by BOOTP.

  <netmask>     Netmask for local network interface. If this is empty,
                the netmask is derived from the client IP address, un-
                less a value has been received by BOOTP.

  <hostname>    Name of the client. If empty, the client IP address is
                used in ASCII notation, or the value received by BOOTP.

  <device>      Name of network device to use. If this is empty, all
                devices are used for RARP requests, and the first one
                found for BOOTP. For NFS the device is used on which
                either RARP or BOOTP replies have been received. If
                you only have one device you can safely leave this blank.

  <autoconf>    Method to use for autoconfiguration. If this is either
                'rarp' or 'bootp' the specified protocol is being used.
                If the value is 'both' or empty, both protocols are used
                so far as they have been enabled during kernel configura-
                tion. 'none' means no autoconfiguration. In this case you
                have to specify all necessary values in the fields before.

  The <autoconf> parameter can appear alone as the value to the nfsaddrs
  parameter (without all the ':' characters before) in which case auto-
  configuration is used. However, the 'none' value is not available in
  that case.




3.) Kernel loader
    -------------

To get the kernel into memory different approaches can be used. They
depend on what facilities are available:


3.1)  Writing the kernel onto a floppy using dd:
        As always you can just write the kernel onto a floppy using dd,
        but then it's not possible to use kernel command lines at all.
        To substitute the 'root=' parameter, create a dummy device on any
        linux system with major number 0 and minor number 255 using mknod:

                mknod /dev/boot255 c 0 255

        Then copy the kernel zImage file onto a floppy using dd:

                dd if=/usr/src/linux/arch/i386/boot/zImage of=/dev/fd0

        And finally use rdev to set the root device:

                rdev /dev/fd0 /dev/boot255

        You can then remove the dummy device /dev/boot255 again. There
        is no real device available for it.
        The other two kernel command line parameters cannot be substi-
        tuted with rdev. Therefore, using this method the kernel will
        by default use RARP and/or BOOTP, and if it gets an answer via
        RARP will mount the directory /tftpboot/<client-ip>/ as its
        root. If it got a BOOTP answer the directory name in that answer
        is used.


3.2) Using LILO
        When using LILO you can specify all necessary command line
        parameters with the 'append=' command in the LILO configuration
        file. However, to use the 'root=' command you also need to
        set up a dummy device as described in 3.1 above. For how to use
        LILO and its 'append=' command please refer to the LILO
        documentation.

3.3) Using loadlin
        When you want to boot Linux from a DOS command prompt without
        having a local hard disk to mount as root, you can use loadlin.
        I was told that it works, but haven't used it myself yet. In
        general you should be able to create a kernel command line simi-
        lar to how LILO is doing it. Please refer to the loadlin docu-
        mentation for further information.

3.4) Using a bootrom
        This is probably the most elegant way of booting a diskless
        client. With a bootrom the kernel gets loaded using the TFTP
        protocol. As far as I know no commercial bootroms already
        support booting Linux over the network, but there are two
        free implementations of a bootrom available on sunsite.unc.edu
        and its mirrors. They are called 'netboot-nfs' and 'etherboot'.
        Both contain everything you need to boot a diskless Linux client.




4.) Credits
    -------

  The nfsroot code in the kernel has been written by me, Gero Kuhlmann
  <gero@gkminix.han.de>, with the BOOTP code and a couple of bug fixes
  contributed by Martin Mares <mj@k332.feld.cvut.cz>. In order to write
  the initial version of nfsroot I would like to thank Jens-Uwe Mager
  <jum@anubis.han.de> for his help.