Netbooting

[Michael <macallan%netbsd.org@localhost>]

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Hello,

I finally got a new disk for my iBook G4, big enough for both MacOS X  
and NetBSD. Since I wanted to use WAPBL I couldn't just create a bunch  
of APPLE_UFS partitions and untar the binary sets, I had to either  
burn a CD or netboot the thing. I didn't want to waste a CD and I  
already have netbooting environments for sparc(64), sgimips and shark  
so adding just another one can't be too much trouble. So I thought.
A while ago I installed NetBSD on a beige G3 that way without too much  
trouble but that machine's got OF 2.01f while the iBook uses 3.0. And  
that's where the troubles start.
Supposedly you just set up dhcpd and tftpd to hand ofwboot.xcf to  
macppc clients. This ( or the equivalent ) works just fine with my  
other machines so the setup isn't the problem. For some reason the  
iBook got an IP address but no filename when booted with 'boot enet: 
0'. With 'boot enet:0.ofwboot.xcf' it loaded the loader which then  
failed to load the kernel via nfs. Apparently it too didn't get a  
servername and a path to mount. I finally got it to work by having OF  
load the NetBSD kernel directly, which works if the kernel isn't too  
big ( on this iBook the limit seems to be around 4MB ), the kernel's  
DHCP client finally managed to obtain the right parameters to mount  
its root.

So, what changed? I know dhcpd got updated. Anything that ofwboot.xcf  
didn't catch up with? I know that Apple's OF is quirky and may need  
some extra workarounds in dhcpd but acording to the docs it used to  
work.

Long story short - if you want to netboot an OF3 Mac from a -current  
server your best bet is to let OF load the kernel directly since  
ofwboot.xcf seems to be broken. And the kernel image better be smaller  
than 4MB although different machines may have different limits here.  
The same ofwboot.xcf had no trouble loading a kernel from a disk  
however.

have fun
Michael

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