Solved Diskless (PXE) boot stuck

[balanga]

rc.initdiskless is executed automatically during the boot process, no user interaction or configuration necessary.

Just asking.... how can I confirm that it has been executed? Does anything get logged anywhere?

 

[cracauer@]

rc.initdiskless is executed automatically during the boot process, no user interaction or configuration necessary.

I am not entirely convinced of that.

 

[cracauer@]

Just asking.... how can I confirm that it has been executed? Does anything get logged anywhere?

Edit it and put a `echo kilroy was here > /tmp/foo` in it.

 

[balanga]

Edit it and put a `echo kilroy was here > /tmp/foo` in it.

I did as you suggested but nothing appeared. Maybe there was no write permission.

I'll try something else just to make sure.

Just trying again noticed that a message about 'read only file system' so rc.initdiskless is actually being executed.

For some reason the message does not show up when running dmesg.

 

[cracauer@]

I did as you suggested but nothing appeared. Maybe there was no write permission.

I'll try something else just to make sure.

Just trying again noticed that a message about 'read only file system' so rc.initdiskless is actually being executed.

For some reason the message does not show up when running dmesg.

Yeah I forgot about filesystem mount and remount ordering.

dmesg only shows kernel printed messages. Userland startup is not captured.

 

[balanga]

. Userland startup is not captured.

Is there any way to get it captured?

 

[cracauer@]

Is there any way to get it captured?

You can wrap it in (...) and redirect to a file.

Of course that requires a read-write mounted filesystem. Maybe it is easiest to use a USB stick and mount it right there in the script.

Don't forget about the -x option, which might come in handy here.

 

[balanga]

I meant is it possible to see those messages output during the boot process which are not shown by dmesg?

 

[cracauer@]

I meant is it possible to see those messages output during the boot process which are not shown by dmesg?

Yes, change the script like this:

#! /bin/sh

set -x

mount /dev/whatever /mnt
(
[acutual script]
) 2>&1 | tee /mnt/log

 

[T-Daemon]

rc.initdiskless is executed automatically during the boot process, no user interaction or configuration necessary.

I am not entirely convinced of that.

Why not?

I didn't have to configure anything /etc/rc.initdiskless related when booting diskless.

Aside from that: FreeBSD handbook, 34.10.1. Setting Up the PXE Environment

When booting from an NFS root volume, /etc/rc detects the NFS boot and runs /etc/rc.initdiskless.