nfsroot support in MULINUX 
Fractured mini-Howto, Sept 2000
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Using this feature, the muLinux floppy, after booting, is able
to mount, AS OWN ROOT, a remote directory exported via NFS 
by some NFS server. This means that it will abandon definitively 
its floppy nature, and go over the network, trasforming your
PC in a pure network terminal. 

To do that, you have to boot the floppy and to configure the
basic network environment (only the first ethernet card is
supported: eth0).

In this example, I will assume 192.168.1.1 as NFS_SERVER,
/remote/root as NFS_ROOT (on the server) and 192.168.1.2 as
the IP to be assigned to client.


Client setup (mulinux)
-----------------------

		# setup nfs NFS_SERVER=192.168.1.1 NFS_ROOT=/remote/root
		# setup eth0 card=my_card IP=192.168.1.2
		# setup network HOSTNAME=xterminal

If you need of PCMCIA support, or if your NIC driver isn't on the
first floppy, please do "setup EXT" first. In this case, muLinux will
load, at startup, two floppies: BOOT and EXT.

Now, save the (locking) profile:

		# setup -s lock 

and reboot the floppy-disk in the client machine. You can save
also with a different name if you want (for example: nfs), but
now the system will prompt for a choice at boot.

Note: you can use "setup" in the interactive-mode, using the "-f"
switch.

Server setup (not mulinux)
--------------------------

Put that in the /etc/exports file:

	/remote/root    192.168.1.0/24(rw,no_root_squash)

Put, in /remote/root, a working Linux system, or copy in it the tree/
structure from a muLinux installation (changing /dev/root, to point
to real hard-disk).

Can I use a ppp or plip link, instead of eth0?
------------------------------------

No. I tried but, strangely, NFS root via point-to-point interface 
doesn't work with kernel 2.0.36, although NFS itself works fine over
ppp or plip!

Further documentation
---------------------

The file nfsroot.txt in the kernel's source, and the file
/etc/rc.prep-nfs in the muLinux tree.

 -- End of the nfsroot Fractured Mini-Howto

