I'm trying to set up a client to boot over NFS, however, I've been stuck for a couple of days with the same error message:

Root-NFS: No NFS server available, giving up.
VFS: Unable to mount root fs via NFS, trying floppy.

I have my server's dhcpd.conf file set up properly, as I am getting the client to receive a response, and to load the kernel. I'm using pxelinux network boot program. I built a new kernel making sure to enable to following options:

CONFIG_IP_PNP -- IP: kernel-level configuration support
CONFIG_IP_PNP_ENABLE
CONFIG_IP_PNP_DHCP -- DHCP support

CONFIG_NFS_FS -- NFS files ystem support
CONFIG_NFS_V3 -- NFS version 3 support
CONFIG_ROOT_NFS -- Root file system on NFS

It's at this point where I'm getting stuck. I've edited my /clients/10.0.1.1/root/etc/fstab file and removed entries that refer to the hard drive, and added the NFS entries. I've also edited the server's /etc/exports file to export the clients file system. I am able to mount the files in the export file from another computer, and also using the loopback feature on the server.

Any ideas on why I'm still not being able to load the root file system for my clients?

J.

Hi,

This means that NFS is not running.
If it is running you have to restart the service, you have to restart it everytime you make changes to the ".conf" files.

See my reply to the thread "Diskless boot problems - Netboot error 35 (Timeout)" for a list of commands to use to see if the services are running.

P.S. Disable any firewalls.