fai-make-nfsroot(8)

💖 fai-make-nfsroot — the manual page, but make it make sense 💖

okay bestie, so this is fai-make-nfsroot(8), from the System Manager's Manual. yes it's a section 8 admin page, yes it's about building an entire root filesystem, and yes we're gonna have fun with it. grab a snack 🍓

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✨ NAME ✨

fai-make-nfsroot — create the FAI nfsroot directory

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🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

fai-make-nfsroot [options]

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💅 DESCRIPTION 💅

So what this does is: it creates the FAI nfsroot directory, and it takes the location straight from $NFSROOT in the config_file. This directory is literally necessary for installing Debian on remote clients using the FAI package. and where does config_file live, you ask? that's discussed down in OPTIONS, bestie, keep scrolling. 🫶

Exit code tea ☕: it returns 0 if all the commands to build the root directory exited successfully, and >0 if an error occurs. no in-between, no drama, just vibes.

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🎀 OPTIONS 🎀

• -a — Adjust a generic nfsroot. Add resolv.conf, add host entries, and/or set the root password.
• -B BASETGZ — Use the specified file as base file (can be base.tar.zst, base.tzst, base.tar.xz, base.txz) for the nfsroot. This avoids calling debootstrap and therefore reduces the buildtime for the nfsroot. it's giving speedrun energy. 🔥
• -c, --class CLASS[,CLASS] — Add these classes to the internal list of classes. This is usually not necessary.
• -C CFDIR — Use CFDIR as configuration directory. Default is /etc/fai. You can also set the environment variable FAI_ETC_DIR.
• -f — Force overwriting an existing nfsroot. By default fai-make-nfsroot aborts if the configuration variable NFSROOT points to a directory which already exists. To force overwriting (and therefore rebuilding) the existing nfsroot use this option. Note: to update and therefore preserve an existing nfsroot see option -k. yes bestie, -f is the "no thoughts, delete it" option 💀
• -g — Create a generic nfsroot. Remove most install server specific data from nfsroot. See also -a.
• -K — Remove all kernels from NFSROOT.
• -k — Install additional packages defined in /etc/fai/NFSROOT into the nfsroot. Also copies all kernels from the nfsroot to the directory $TFTPROOT. You can use this option, to upgrade all packages inside the nfsroot. glow-up for your whole nfsroot ✨
• -N — Additionally install non-free packages defined in the NONFREE section of /etc/fai/NFSROOT.
• -P — Preserve ssh configs including the keys of the root account and also the ssh host keys from inside the nfsroot when creating a new nfsroot.
• -p — Preserve ssh configs including the keys of the root account. This will not preserve the ssh host keys inside the nfsroot when creating a new nfsroot.
• -s — Create a smaller nfsroot. Do not install packages defined in /etc/fai/NFSROOT in the FULL section. tiny nfsroot, tiny carbon footprint, iconic.
• -v — Create verbose output on stdout.
• -h — Show simple help.
• -z — Use zstd for compressing the base.tar file which is much faster than xz. Default is to use xz.

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🦋 NOTES 🦋

If you do not use NFS, you may still use the NFSROOT directory as a staging point for building the base installation tarball. no NFS, no problem, the directory still eats. 💅

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🌈 SEE ALSO 🌈

exports(5), nfsd(8), fai-setup(8)

This program is part of FAI (Fully Automatic Installation). See the FAI manual for more information on how to use fai-make-nfsroot. The FAI homepage is https://fai-project.org.

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🧚 FILES 🧚

• /etc/fai/fai.conf — The FAI configuration file.
• /etc/fai/nfsroot.conf — The configuration file for fai-make-nfsroot.
• /etc/fai/nfsroot-hooks/ — Directory containing shell scripts (using LSB namespaces) to be sourced at the end of fai-make-nfsroot for additional configuration of the nfsroot. Can be changed with NFSROOT_HOOKS.
• /etc/fai/apt/sources.list — Copy this file to the NFSROOT.
• /etc/fai/apt/keys/*.gpg — Repository keys in .gpg format found here will be installed into the NFSROOT.
• /var/log/fai/variables — The script will write the values of FAI_VERSION and NFSROOT to this file.

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👑 AUTHOR 👑

Thomas Lange <lange@cs.uni-koeln.de>

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and that's the whole page, bestie. shoutout to FAI 5.9, dated July 2020, for giving us this absolute classic. go build that nfsroot. periodt. 💖✨🎀