Re: [gentoo-user] Root on NFS Suspend/Resume support

[Tsukasa Mcp_Reznor]

________________________________________
From: Grant Taylor <gtaylor@×××××××××××××××××××××.net>
Sent: Monday, December 10, 2018 10:14 PM
To: gentoo-user@l.g.o
Subject: Re: [gentoo-user] Root on NFS Suspend/Resume support

On 12/10/18 8:03 PM, Tsukasa Mcp_Reznor wrote:
&gt; Has anyone managed to get suspend/resume to work on diskless machines
&gt; using NFS as the root?

~blink~

I haven't tried to suspend / resume diskless machines.  (I've not done
much with diskless machines, but it's on my to do list.)

But I don't think I would have thought about trying to suspend / resume
a diskless machine.

Are we talking about a wired Ethernet network connection with static
IP(s)?  Or something more complex?

Aside: I'm wondering why a diskless machine is using suspend / resume.
If you're bored, I'd like to have my (apparently limited) world view
expanded.

&gt; Suspend works like normal, but resume hard locks, can't seem to get any
&gt; error's or anything as it's not sending to any log files naturally.

Have you tried using any network based logging?

Can syslog log to a network block device?

Doesn't the kernel have some network logging?  Or the ability to log
debug info somewhere other than a file?

&gt; I have 3 machines currently running this setup, just trying to save
&gt; some power.  If it helps they are all using Realtek NICs.

Okay.  I conceptually get saving power.

How are you waking them up?  User interaction?  Clock?  Magic packet?

&gt; My google-fu hasn't turned up anything in the last 5 years.

So, you've been working on it for a while.

Are any of your problems related to stale file handles?  I.e. the
diskless NFS client disagreeing with the NFS server about the state of
the files?  Is the NFS server closing the files after a timeout?

&gt; Thanks

You're welcome.  But I'm not sure I helped.  I would like to learn what
you figure out.




You're totally correct, more information would be beneficial, here goes.
All machines are Wired 1Gbps connections.
Uefi IP4 network stack sends dhcp request, gets boot file pxelinux.efi, the default entry sends the linux kernel (no initramfs needed, firmware added to kernel image).
Another good note is the kernel contains the command line built-in for using root on NFS.
Machine loads, mounts the required mount points through NFS4.2 (so much better than the old NFS 3 speeds).
LightDM loads and users are free to work, in this case family members playing Steam/Diablo 3/etc.
I switched to using Root on NFS for alot of reasons.

Maintaining 4 gentoo installs on machines of varying specs and remembering to update each with good updates added a fair amount of administration time. (4, because the server is included)

Using chroots on the server as binary build hosts for each machine solves some problems, but increases space requirements quite a bit, and adds latency if you want to use it while it's emerging anything, plus compiling say Libreoffice or whatever 3+ times in a row is pretty slow.

Side note, If anyone else runs diskless I have a patch for wine I can send out that returns the nfs mount as a fixed hard drive, there are a few apps/games that refuse to install/run on a network share, and a patch for steam that removes the file locking issues so updates run quick and smooth (neither will ever be upstreamable, people have tried in the past)

</gtaylor@×××××××××××××××××××××.net>

Thanks for your response, I'd love to help if you have any more questions, it's been a fun experience for me for sure. Also, cachefilesd if there's a drive available, makes everything feel like it's not a networked machine at all here.