OpenELEC[PXE BOOT Failure] - Loads kernel, splash screen.. Fails on mounting NFS share.

[KillerKelvUK]

Solutioning on the fly but as the RPI boots from SD card would it not be plausable to boot something like iPXE from the SD card which then enables PXE boot?

[mcarni]

from what i understand, the initial steps of raspberry pi boot process will look for some sort of graphical card boot file which must be on the SD
then the boot process will look for a kernel.img, which could be a linux distro, but it could also be a boot loader.
I thought about ipxe, but i think there is no ipxe for the arm architecture, an alternatuve could be das u-boot, which, in my eyes, seems a bit more complicate than ipxe.

please, feel free to jump in and correct my wrongful assumptions....

Thanks

m

[sebj]

Anyone booting the latest 11.0.1?

Not happening for me yet

EDIT: I think nfs booting got turned off...

Anyone know how to enable it again in the compile?

[e_esprit]

There has been some quite big changes in the init process, and the kernel options parsing recently. I wouldn't be surprised that your problem comes from that :
https://github.com/OpenELEC/OpenELEC.tv/pull/324

[KillerKelvUK]

There has been some quite big changes in the init process, and the kernel options parsing recently. I wouldn't be surprised that your problem comes from that :
https://github.com/OpenELEC/OpenELEC.tv/pull/324

Yeh, new init script by the looks of it...init

As per e_esprit's link the PXE menu needs re-writing, mines is now...

Code:

LABEL OE_Fusion_x86_64_r10254
MENU LABEL OpenELEC Fusion x86_64 Devel r10254
KERNEL openelec/Fusion/r10254/KERNEL
APPEND ip=dhcp boot=NFS=xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx:/path to KERNEL & SYSTEM/ disk=NFS=xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx:/path to storage/ nosplash ssh

Just tested this on my Fusion laptop, will be spinning up an ION soon.

Worth noting as I believe the boot=NFS= and disk=NFS= are case sensitive.

[sebj]

Thanks guys, that was it.

I had a hunch something changed!

[KillerKelvUK]

Been toying around with PXE'ing using Samba and thereabouts got it working albeit with some random issues which seem file permission related.

pxelinux.cfg/default file looks like this...

Code:

LABEL OE_Fusion_x86_64_r10254_cifs
MENU LABEL OpenELEC Fusion x86_64 Devel r10254 CIFS
KERNEL openelec/Fusion/r10254/KERNEL
APPEND ip=dhcp boot=CIFS=//xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx/shareroot,user=xxxx,password=xxxx,
prefixpath=relative path from boot-shareroot to subdir as needed/
disk=CIFS=//xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx/shareroot,user=xxx,password=xxxx,
prefixpath=relative path from disk-shareroot to subdir as needed/
nosplash ssh debugging

boot=CIFS and disk=CIFS are case sensitive just like the NFS variant. I also noted that termining the shareroot directory with a / resulted in an error e.g.

boot=CIFS=//xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx/openelec/ <--Doesn't work
boot=CIFS=//xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx/openelec <--Works

Combined with the prefixpath option which needs to start as a relative path from the shareroot as above.

So onto my problem...it doesn't boot everytime! If I delete the storage directory and let OE re-create it on boot then okay, however when rebooted I get SSH permission errors and seemingly a black screen at the point its trying to spring xbmc. Manually correct the SSH permissions with a chmod -R 700 /storage/.cache/ssh, the SSH error ceases to present but still the black screen after and no xbmc.

Anyone offer any guidance/insight?

EDIT: Forgot to mention that PXE the same KERNEL and SYSTEM files but using NFS works no issues :angry:

[jdmpike]

I just recently upgraded the image to the latest nightly for my PXE booting devices and when I booted the first one, I noticed it wasn't looking in the place it used to for /storage

Previously in /storage, each one of my devices had a directory named with a hyphenated version of the MAC address for the NIC it was booting from. The device I have booted up now is simply using the root of /storage.

Is this something I need to configure in the pxelinux.cfg? I am using a stupid simple config at the moment.

Code:

DEFAULT linux
PROMPT 0

LABEL linux
KERNEL /KERNEL
APPEND ip=::::::dhcp boot=NFS=192.168.1.107:/OE disk=NFS=192.168.1.107:/storage quiet nosplash ssh
IPAPPEND 2

Stated differently, do I need to create entries for each of my devices in the pxelinux.cfg with individual disk locations (ip:/storage/aa-bb-cc-dd-ee-ff-gg)?

Thanks in advance!

[KillerKelvUK]

...

Stated differently, do I need to create entries for each of my devices in the pxelinux.cfg with individual disk locations (ip:/storage/aa-bb-cc-dd-ee-ff-gg)?

Thanks in advance!

Yes, the storage folder would need to be represented per device if you weren't wanting centralised storage folder (assuming you have a variety of devices needing specific OE config).

Alternatively you could have a different PXE file per device e.g. for my setup...

/pxelinux.cfg/00020003-0004-0005-0006-000700080009 <-- UUID of my HTPC (You can use MAC also)
/pxelinux.cfg/default <-- Catch all for other devices

That way you could set the PXE up for the specific devices to auto boot without user input.

If you use the same device hardware then you could just centralise the xbmc library, lots of posts about this.

[ack006]

Hello to all, I'm the one responsible for the changes to the boot parameters, and am also your friendly moderator for today (or so I hope B) ).
Sorry for not responding more quickly to your questions and problems.

I'll be locking this topic soon, it started out with problems with much older versions of OpenELEC, but now it deals with the new boot options, and also I think it's gotten rather long.

To make it easier for new users wanting to try PXE booting to find the information they need, I've created a new sticky topic specifically for the new boot parameters. I've tried to gather as many of your concerns and have added them in the first post. If you feel there's anything missing or have any questions or comments about the new parameters please post any questions and comments there.
If, on the other hand, there are any problems or bugs with the new options or with PXE booting of OpenELEC in general, please create a new topic.

Kind regards,

ack006