smokey01,
Welcome back
pemasu,
Forgot to say thanks for your source files. I look at it, it looks simple enough, perhaps it can be replaced with technosaurus' "sit" (simple icon tray") - which is included in Fatdog?
gcmartin,
Glad that the video issues are resolved.
Thanks for raising the issue on netboot server.
"Netboot Server" as known in Fatdog's previous life will not make a comeback, nor will the pet. However, its functionality is now included in Fatdog out of the box, although it *does* need some configuration work.
So what's available? For a start, Fatdog comes with a pre-configured dnsmasq configuration file, for net-booting, called "dnsmasq.conf.netboot". This file contains the gist of the configuration used by the previous "Netboot Server" - dnsmasq run with this configuration file will behave identically with the original "Netboot Server". By default, this file is configured to serve netboot files to VirtualBox guests using "Host-only" network interface.
All that one needs to do is two easy steps:
a) copy all the usual netboot files to /var/lib/tftp.
This includes:
- copying "pxelinux.0" (available from /usr/share/syslinux), and
- creating "pxelinux.cfg" directory underneath it, and
- creating "default" configuration file inside this pxelinux.cfg directory, and
- copying the actual ISO / kernel / initrd / other files you want to boot, as needed, inside the pxelinux.cfg directory too.
b) start the dnsmasq by typing this "dnsmasq -k -C /etc/dnsmasq.conf.netboot" on terminal. Once you're done with dnsmasq you can kill it with Ctrl-C. If you want to automatically start this at boot, add that line to /etc/rc.d/rc.local (without the -k option).
/etc/dnsmasq.conf.netboot is heavily commented and should be easy to modify for use to boot real systems on real network interfaces (instead of VirtualBox guests) --- the file contains markers of where things should be changed if you want to boot real systems.
The reason why /var/lib/tftp and its subdirectories are not included by default in Fatdog is because it is *not* the correct place to put netboot files. It is there as an *example* only. One should specify a location *outside* savefile (e.g. /mnt/home/tftp or something) for the actual storage of netboot files, as they can be very large.
The old "Netboot Server" pet also contains a tool called "mknetboot.sh". The purpose of this quick-and-dirty script was just to embed puppy's base SFS to initrd (making a humongous initrd). This tool is not supported anymore (and thus not included in Fatdog) for the following reasons:
a) Proliferation of SFS files needed to boot puppy (not only pup.sfs, now we have zdrive.sfs, adrive.sfs, etc etc), and different puppies have different configuration of SFSes.
b) Some puppies will not netboot even if you put all those SFS inside the initrd, because --- well they simply don't support netboot, even if you make a humongous initrd out of them.
Time has changed. When I first released mknetboot.sh, most puppies only have one SFS and most of them supports netbooting via humongous inird, so such tool (though very limited) was useful. Today, not so. As such, I consider that providing such tool is not a help, it is in fact a source of unnecessary confusion and disappointment.
My take is this: if one wants to do netboot, make sure to get a netboot capable OS, and then learn how to setup the system properly.
Oh and dnsmasq will not be featured in the control panel as a service too, for the simple reason that it *requires* configuration before it can work - there is no sane default which can be used. (One can't just click "start service" and expect the netboot to work. It won't). In addition, dnsmasq is a very versatile daemon and can be used for many purposes (not only for netboot); in fact, one can run multiple instances of dnsmasq serving different purposes (by having each of them points to a different dnsmasq.conf file). A complete, fully-commented /etc/dnsmasq.conf.example is provided for those who want / need to use dnsmasq's other features. Anyone who needs to use dnsmasq regularly as a service should be able to write a simple service files in /etc/init.d themselves, perhaps by making a copy of existing service files and then modify it to start dnsmasq instead.
cheers!