Subject: Re: 5.1 installation fun & games...

From: Leon Verrall <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 13 Jul 1998 17:27:17 +0100 (BST)

On Thu, 9 Jul 1998, Shrijeet Mukherjee wrote:

> ->Ah, a chicken and egg thing. You can nfsroot an SG linux box as long as you
> ->have a linux box to do it from...
> 
> so do I understand correctly that I cannot boot my Indy for setting linux
> up from another IRIX box (running 6.5) ... but have to go find a Intel box
> running Linux ?

Well, here's a funny thing... 

I now have a debian Linux box in the office configured for bootp and tftp
etc. It has the manhattan alpha 1 distribution on it. I bootp():/vmlinuz my
Indy, the kernel boots fine and then:

  Warning: unable to open an initial console. 

Where have we seen this before? 

/etc/exports has :

  /usr/src/sgi/installfs 144.253.75.29(no_root_squash,rw)

I've tried mucking about with permissions on the files in
/usr/src/sgi/installfs/dev but no dice. And the code it stops at is:

  if (open("/dev/console", O_RDWR, 0) < 0)
                printk("Warning: unable to open an initial console.\n");

So nothing complicated happening there. It just plain can't open
/dev/console for read and write... rpc.mountd's debug output doesn't help.
It just says the mount was sucessful. 

I've also tried a few options like nfsroot=/usr/src/sgi/installfs,flags=dev
just to make sure...

Anyone else hitting this? 

Leon

-- 
Leon Verrall - 01189 307734  \ "Don't cut your losses too soon,
Secondline Software Support  / 'cos you'll only be cutting your throat.
Silicon Graphics, Forum 1,   \ And answer a call while you still care at all
Station Rd., Theale, RG7 4RA / 'cos nobody will if you wont" (6:00 - DT)

---

From: Alex deVries <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 13 Jul 1998 14:21:07 -0400 (EDT)

> > up from another IRIX box (running 6.5) ... but have to go find a Intel box

Yes, this is uncomfortable, and slightly ridiculous that you'd have to do
this. For now, this is just the way it will be until we get proper initrd
stuff working in the kernel.

> Where have we seen this before? 

This is a problem with the install not being able to find the /dev/console
file.  It usually means you don't have the install pointing in the right
place.  I'd suggest looking at tftp and nfs logs closely.

- Alex

---

From: Leon Verrall <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 14 Jul 1998 14:30:47 +0100 (BST)

> place.  I'd suggest looking at tftp and nfs logs closely.

This is irritating... rpc.nfsd reports this activity during the boot:

 Jul 14 13:55:59 lab17 mountd[199]: NFS mount of /usr/src/sgi/installfs
 attempted from 144.253.75.29 
 Jul 14 13:55:59 lab17 mountd[199]: /usr/src/sgi/installfs has been mounted
 by 144.253.75.29
 Jul 14 13:55:59 lab17 nfsd[420]: getattr [1 70/1/1 01:00:04 lab29 0.0]
 Jul 14 13:55:59 lab17 nfsd[420]: ^I7200e760 04 708c8eca
 Jul 14 13:55:59 lab17 nfsd[420]: result: 0
 Jul 14 13:55:59 lab17 nfsd[420]: lookup [1 70/1/1 01:00:04 lab29 0.0]
 Jul 14 13:55:59 lab17 nfsd[420]: ^Ifh:/usr/src/sgi/installfs n:dev
 Jul 14 13:55:59 lab17 nfsd[420]: ^Inew_fh = /usr/src/sgi/installfs/dev
 Jul 14 13:55:59 lab17 nfsd[420]: result: 0
 Jul 14 13:55:59 lab17 nfsd[420]: lookup [1 70/1/1 01:00:04 lab29 0.0]
 Jul 14 13:55:59 lab17 nfsd[420]: ^Ifh:/usr/src/sgi/installfs/dev n:console
 Jul 14 13:55:59 lab17 nfsd[420]: ^Inew_fh =
 /usr/src/sgi/installfs/dev/console  
 Jul 14 13:55:59 lab17 nfsd[420]: result: 0                                      

And then goes on to stat init, some libraries and the install2 binary but
still comlians that the console can't be opened. 

OK, I thought perhaps that filesystems is duff. So I exported / on the linux
box and booted with that as my nfsroot. OK it'll fail to find init (which it
did) but it should open /dev/console. Nope, same error. 

As far as I can tell the mount is sucessful and the right files are being
accessed. Presumably the filesystem is properly mounted by the kernel on the
Indy under / so what does that leave...?

Leon