On Tue, 27 Sep 2005, Joe Landman wrote:

Hi folks:

We are setting up a cluster, and I would like to know if it is possible during the autoyast session to use nbgrub (network bootable grub) rather than ordinary grub for the bootloader. The current bootloader section looks something like this:

<install> <bootloader> <activate config:type="boolean">false</activate> <!-- global stuff here, omitted for brevity --> <!-- initrd stuff here, omitted for brevity --> <loader_device>/dev/sda</loader_device> <loader_type>grub</loader_type> <location>mbr</location> <repl_mbr config:type="boolean">false</repl_mbr> <sections config:type="list"> ...

Can we replace <loader_type>grub</loader_type> with <loader_type>nbgrub</loader_type> or is there something different we need to do? The idea is that we would like to have a re-install entry for the node set up via grub, and we have the PXEboot -> autoyast installation working fine. What I would like to have is an entry in the grub menu look like this:

title install-suse9-AMD64 dhcp root (nd) kernel (nd)/linux64 noapic debug verbose vga=791 install=nfs://192.168.0.1/srv/os/suse93 autoyast=nfs://192.168.0.1/srv/os/suse93/autoyast-config initrd (nd)/initrd64

Note: I have this working with nbgrub and pxeboot now for machines without a bootable image. I would like it for those with a bootable image using grub/nbgrub on the disk.

I guess you already know this, but...

You could add the installer-kernel and installer-initrd to the local harddrive, add an entry in grub-menu like the above. (but using local files instead, autoyast-parameter should still be remote though).

I use this when I want to start a remote install, just add the initrd/kernel and options, make the newly added install-kernel the default and reboot the host. (Adding vnc= on the kernel-line to get vnc-access to the install makes it possible to see what it does. )

Another option is to have pxe-boot as second method in BIOS, and simply trash the first 2 bytes on the drive with 'dd' and reboot. This makes it pxeboot since the local drive is not bootable. ;)

/ Daniel