Minimal requirements for NFS server

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Sebastian Contact options for registered users 's Avatar (by Gravatar) posted on
April 28, 2006, 5:24 pm
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Hello,

I am setting up an old Cyrix 486/40 using Linux. I'd like to use it as a
storage machine, so I installed a 32 Mb CF (hda) and a 40 Gb (hdb) disk. As
it only got 8 Mb of memory, I'm using Kernel 2.2.26 and a recent
installation of BusyBox 1.1.2.

But now I am stuck with the compiling and installation of the NFS server; I
think I have to use the knfsd to achieve the 7 MBit/s  I need to save (live
streaming). What version of the nfs-utils package do you recommend for this
kernel?

I wasn't able to get uClibc to work (it hung at "Freeing kernel memory: 40k"
and the next line contained "mma") so I think I'll use the glibc-package
from my host system (coLinux / Debian Woody) - they work as expected.

Can someone recommend some documentation / howto / manual about setting up a
nfs server? I haven't found anything beyound "Start these programs your
distribution has given you" with my researches.

As the system doesn't have a graphics adaptor I use the serial console now;
but I'd like to use the telnetd from BusyBox. What do you think is better -
starting it from inetd or running it as a single daemon?

I hope my questions aren't that stupid, but I couldn't find the answers yet.

Thanks in advance,
Sebastian



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linnix Contact options for registered users 's Avatar (by Gravatar) posted on
April 28, 2006, 6:42 pm
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Re: Minimal requirements for NFS server

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8 Mb would be tight?  What type of memory it needed, 36pins SIMM?
Can't you spare a couple of dollars for more RAM?

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After freeing memory, it's trying to open the console.  So you have
that part to deal with.

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Before running with nfs, please try walking with basic setup first.

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Captain Dondo Contact options for registered users 's Avatar (by Gravatar) posted on
April 28, 2006, 6:53 pm
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Re: Minimal requirements for NFS server
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Yup, with 8MB the system will be barely usable....  You really need
about 16MB for a usable system....

8MB means no dropbear, probably no telnet, no syslog, just the absolute
bare minimum, turn-it-on-and-pray....

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I'm not sure about the recent kernel versions, but at that point you
have to have /dev populated with the console and tty device names.
Since devfs is gone from 2.6, I'm not sure how that works now in
embedded systems....  devfs was a good thing for embedded platforms....

You can try running a basic "hello world" type app instead of init to
see if init is getting called.


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With 8MB, you may not have room for either....

--Yan

Sebastian Contact options for registered users 's Avatar (by Gravatar) posted on
April 28, 2006, 7:28 pm
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Re: Minimal requirements for NFS server
Hello,

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As

It is 30 pin SIMM with 8 slots and 1 Mb each. I've seen modules with more
but they are too expensive and - more important - very rare. As the
mainboard is quite small, I'd like to use it anyway... the system doesn't
have a single fan, the only thing producing noise is the hard disk, which I
turn off after 15 seconds or so of inactivity.

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I hope I can also integrate httpd and telnetd from busybox (I have ~4-5 Mb
free after booting with a single shell running). Maybe even a simple
interpreter to run scripts via HTTP, but I have to see what's possible.

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server; I
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(live
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this
40k"
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I think I've given up the try and use my old system with the host libs from
/lib, so I can change binaries.

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Yes, I thought of that too, but I'm not familiar with C at all and neither
with compilers and so on. But this far busybox' init works for me (but not
uClibc).

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now;
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better -
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I don't know how much memory a NFS server will take, I haven't got it
running yet (simply crashed). But I'll see when I have my sytem up again (a
crash killed the relevant files ... I'll never strip my system libs again
:( )

Regards,
Sebastian



Captain Dondo Contact options for registered users 's Avatar (by Gravatar) posted on
April 28, 2006, 7:36 pm
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Re: Minimal requirements for NFS server
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I just noticed this - the 40 GB hard disk....

Make sure to give yourself gobs and gobs of swap.  I'd go for 100MB or
so.  What the heck, you have the hard disk storage...

That way, you should be able run whatever you need, albeit slowly...
You'll be swapping like crazy, but at least you should be able to run
nfs + httpd + dropbear.  You may have to wait while the system swaps out
one app for another.  Just don't hammer it with streaming data while
you're trying to bring up that webpage...

--Yan

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