nfs: new subdir Documentation/filesystems/nfs

We're adding enough nfs documentation that it may as well have its own
subdirectory.

Acked-by: Randy Dunlap <rdunlap@xenotime.net>
Signed-off-by: J. Bruce Fields <bfields@citi.umich.edu>

1 files changed, 270 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/Documentation/filesystems/nfs/nfsroot.txt b/Documentation/filesystems/nfs/nfsroot.txt
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+Mounting the root filesystem via NFS (nfsroot)
+===============================================
+
+Written 1996 by Gero Kuhlmann <gero@gkminix.han.de>
+Updated 1997 by Martin Mares <mj@atrey.karlin.mff.cuni.cz>
+Updated 2006 by Nico Schottelius <nico-kernel-nfsroot@schottelius.org>
+Updated 2006 by Horms <horms@verge.net.au>
+
+
+
+In order to use a diskless system, such as an X-terminal or printer server
+for example, it is necessary for the root filesystem to be present on a
+non-disk device. This may be an initramfs (see Documentation/filesystems/
+ramfs-rootfs-initramfs.txt), a ramdisk (see Documentation/initrd.txt) 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, NFS client support needs to be selected as
+built-in during configuration. Once this has been selected, the nfsroot
+option will become available, which should also be selected.
+
+In the networking options, kernel level autoconfiguration can be selected,
+along with the types of autoconfiguration to support. Selecting all of
+DHCP, BOOTP and RARP is safe.
+
+
+
+
+2.) Kernel command line
+    -------------------
+
+When the kernel has been loaded by a boot loader (see below) it needs to be
+told what root fs device to use. And in the case of nfsroot, where to find
+both the server and the name of the directory on the server to mount as root.
+This can be established using the following 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 given on the command line,
+  the default "/tftpboot/%s" will be used.
+
+  <server-ip>	Specifies the IP address of the NFS server.
+		The default address is determined by the `ip' parameter
+		(see below). This parameter allows the use of different
+		servers for IP autoconfiguration and NFS.
+
+  <root-dir>	Name of the directory on the server to mount as root.
+		If there is a "%s" token in the string, it will be
+		replaced by the ASCII-representation of the client's
+		IP address.
+
+  <nfs-options>	Standard NFS options. All options are separated by commas.
+		The following defaults are used:
+			port		= as given by server portmap daemon
+			rsize		= 4096
+			wsize		= 4096
+			timeo		= 7
+			retrans		= 3
+			acregmin	= 3
+			acregmax	= 60
+			acdirmin	= 30
+			acdirmax	= 60
+			flags		= hard, nointr, noposix, cto, ac
+
+
+ip=<client-ip>:<server-ip>:<gw-ip>:<netmask>:<hostname>:<device>:<autoconf>
+
+  This parameter tells the kernel how to configure IP addresses of devices
+  and also how to set up the IP routing table. It was originally called
+  `nfsaddrs', but now the boot-time IP configuration works independently of
+  NFS, so it was renamed to `ip' and the old name remained as an alias for
+  compatibility reasons.
+
+  If this parameter is missing from the kernel command line, all fields are
+  assumed to be empty, and the defaults mentioned below apply. In general
+  this means that the kernel tries to configure everything using
+  autoconfiguration.
+
+  The <autoconf> parameter can appear alone as the value to the `ip'
+  parameter (without all the ':' characters before).  If the value is
+  "ip=off" or "ip=none", no autoconfiguration will take place, otherwise
+  autoconfiguration will take place.  The most common way to use this
+  is "ip=dhcp".
+
+  <client-ip>	IP address of the client.
+
+  		Default:  Determined using autoconfiguration.
+
+  <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.
+
+		Only required for NFS root. That is autoconfiguration
+		will not be triggered if it is missing and NFS root is not
+		in operation.
+
+		Default: Determined using autoconfiguration.
+		         The address of the autoconfiguration server is used.
+
+  <gw-ip>	IP address of a gateway if the server is on a different subnet.
+
+		Default: Determined using autoconfiguration.
+
+  <netmask>	Netmask for local network interface. If unspecified
+		the netmask is derived from the client IP address assuming
+		classful addressing.
+
+		Default:  Determined using autoconfiguration.
+
+  <hostname>	Name of the client. May be supplied by autoconfiguration,
+  		but its absence will not trigger autoconfiguration.
+
+  		Default: Client IP address is used in ASCII notation.
+
+  <device>	Name of network device to use.
+
+		Default: If the host only has one device, it is used.
+			 Otherwise the device is determined using
+			 autoconfiguration. This is done by sending
+			 autoconfiguration requests out of all devices,
+			 and using the device that received the first reply.
+
+  <autoconf>	Method to use for autoconfiguration. In the case of options
+                which specify multiple autoconfiguration protocols,
+		requests are sent using all protocols, and the first one
+		to reply is used.
+
+		Only autoconfiguration protocols that have been compiled
+		into the kernel will be used, regardless of the value of
+		this option.
+
+                  off or none: don't use autoconfiguration
+				(do static IP assignment instead)
+		  on or any:   use any protocol available in the kernel
+			       (default)
+		  dhcp:        use DHCP
+		  bootp:       use BOOTP
+		  rarp:        use RARP
+		  both:        use both BOOTP and RARP but not DHCP
+		               (old option kept for backwards compatibility)
+
+                Default: any
+
+
+
+
+3.) Boot Loader
+    ----------
+
+To get the kernel into memory different approaches can be used.
+They depend on various facilities being available:
+
+
+3.1)  Booting from a floppy using syslinux
+
+	When building kernels, an easy way to create a boot floppy that uses
+	syslinux is to use the zdisk or bzdisk make targets which use zimage
+      	and bzimage images respectively. Both targets accept the
+     	FDARGS parameter which can be used to set the kernel command line.
+
+	e.g.
+	   make bzdisk FDARGS="root=/dev/nfs"
+
+   	Note that the user running this command will need to have
+     	access to the floppy drive device, /dev/fd0
+
+     	For more information on syslinux, including how to create bootdisks
+     	for prebuilt kernels, see http://syslinux.zytor.com/
+
+	N.B: Previously it was possible to write a kernel directly to
+	     a floppy using dd, configure the boot device using rdev, and
+	     boot using the resulting floppy. Linux no longer supports this
+	     method of booting.
+
+3.2) Booting from a cdrom using isolinux
+
+     	When building kernels, an easy way to create a bootable cdrom that
+     	uses isolinux is to use the isoimage target which uses a bzimage
+     	image. Like zdisk and bzdisk, this target accepts the FDARGS
+     	parameter which can be used to set the kernel command line.
+
+	e.g.
+	  make isoimage FDARGS="root=/dev/nfs"
+
+     	The resulting iso image will be arch/<ARCH>/boot/image.iso
+     	This can be written to a cdrom using a variety of tools including
+     	cdrecord.
+
+	e.g.
+	  cdrecord dev=ATAPI:1,0,0 arch/i386/boot/image.iso
+
+     	For more information on isolinux, including how to create bootdisks
+     	for prebuilt kernels, see http://syslinux.zytor.com/
+
+3.2) Using LILO
+	When using LILO all the necessary command line parameters may be
+	specified using the 'append=' directive in the LILO configuration
+	file.
+
+	However, to use the 'root=' directive you also need to create
+	a dummy root device, which may be removed after LILO is run.
+
+	mknod /dev/boot255 c 0 255
+
+	For information on configuring LILO, please refer to its documentation.
+
+3.3) Using GRUB
+	When using GRUB, kernel parameter are simply appended after the kernel
+	specification: kernel <kernel> <parameters>
+
+3.4) Using loadlin
+	loadlin may be used to boot Linux from a DOS command prompt without
+	requiring a local hard disk to mount as root. This has not been
+	thoroughly tested by the authors of this document, but in general
+	it should be possible configure the kernel command line similarly
+	to the configuration of LILO.
+
+	Please refer to the loadlin documentation for further information.
+
+3.5) Using a boot ROM
+	This is probably the most elegant way of booting a diskless client.
+	With a boot ROM the kernel is loaded using the TFTP protocol. The
+	authors of this document are not aware of any no commercial boot
+	ROMs that support booting Linux over the network. However, there
+	are two free implementations of a boot ROM, netboot-nfs and
+	etherboot, both of which are available on sunsite.unc.edu, and both
+	of which contain everything you need to boot a diskless Linux client.
+
+3.6) Using pxelinux
+	Pxelinux may be used to boot linux using the PXE boot loader
+	which is present on many modern network cards.
+
+	When using pxelinux, the kernel image is specified using
+	"kernel <relative-path-below /tftpboot>". The nfsroot parameters
+	are passed to the kernel by adding them to the "append" line.
+	It is common to use serial console in conjunction with pxeliunx,
+	see Documentation/serial-console.txt for more information.
+
+	For more information on isolinux, including how to create bootdisks
+	for prebuilt kernels, see http://syslinux.zytor.com/
+
+
+
+
+4.) Credits
+    -------
+
+  The nfsroot code in the kernel and the RARP support have been written
+  by Gero Kuhlmann <gero@gkminix.han.de>.
+
+  The rest of the IP layer autoconfiguration code has been written
+  by Martin Mares <mj@atrey.karlin.mff.cuni.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.