I am trying to setup a DIskless PC in my office using bootp,tftp,NFS.netboot.
I created a network bootable Kernel image(using mknbi) and my client pc can get the
image and it is booting.But it can not mount the root fs using NFS.The message i am getting is
Root-NFS-NO NFS server available;giving up
VFS:unable to mount the root file system via. NFS trying floppy
VFS;INsert the root floppy and press enter.

--It seems that the client kernel image don't know where to look for NFS mounting.I booted my client pc using a Suse Live CD and tried to mount the files manually i gave in my /etc/exports.It is working.So there is no problem with NFS(It is running).
for creating a client kernle image i used the following syntax:-
Linux:/usr/local/netboot/#./mknbi-linux/mknbi -i rom -d rom -i bzImage -o clinetimage
---if i give a rom as the option my clinet is supposed to mount the directory where my client kernel image is located.But it is failing.I am clueless.
In my bootp servers configuraion file also I gave the rp(root file path) as
rp=/ftpboot/xterm1.
I don't know where it is going wrong.what is the diiference between mkbi and mknbi-linux.Any help???

before those NFS related errors ,I have another line in my boot messages.
IP config:NO netework devices available

yep always fun doing this, i am guessing u know u need to provide the path for nfs to mount. also note the kernel needs the drivers for the network card.

This is a big point as i have been fooled a few times.
here is what i do.
I dump the stupid bzImage and make a nice big 1mb-1.5mb zImage.
the i use pxe linux to boot it as hardware pxe kernels must be smaller then 500k.

Now once u have compiled your kernel with kernel-autoconfig via dhcp and root on nfs u can boot it with pxelinux and pass the nfs root location into the kernel.

But make sure u know what module your network card uses and make sure it is a part of the kernel, as just because the kernel loads does not mean network is working.

yep another thing u can do is boot a initrd image.

This is good because u can load bash and do some debugging.
Also if u are like me and have a few nvidia network cards u can load the network as a module.

then u can can manually load network and do a pivit root

that is what mandrake and redhat do when they boot, i am sure u have seen a file called initrd.img in lilo.

u can mount the initrd image as ext2 and have a look at it not much there.

this method is good as u can use the pivit root system call to pivit into a standard distro's boot procedure.

I solved the problem.Actaully i my host kernel is not compiled with ethernet support.I used to load it as a module.Since I used that kernel image for making my network boottable image.There also it tried to load the module and i have got the errors.Now i compiled ethnet
support in my host kernel and made a new network bootable image.Now that porblem is solved.It is able to mount the Root file system.But it says intial console not found.after that it stops.Any how thank you guys