PS3 NFS Root File System HOWTO 2011.04.14 Copyright (c) 2007 Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. Copyright 2007 Sony Corporation Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover Texts. A copy of the license is included in the section entitled "GNU Free Documentation License". DISCLAIMER THIS DOCUMENT IS PROVIDED "AS IS," AND COPYRIGHT HOLDERS MAKE NO REPRESENTATIONS OR WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, NON-INFRINGEMENT, OR TITLE; THAT THE CONTENTS OF THE DOCUMENT ARE SUITABLE FOR ANY PURPOSE; NOR THAT THE IMPLEMENTATION OF SUCH CONTENTS WILL NOT INFRINGE ANY THIRD PARTY PATENTS, COPYRIGHTS, TRADEMARKS OR OTHER RIGHTS. COPYRIGHT HOLDERS WILL NOT BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, SPECIAL OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES ARISING OUT OF ANY USE OF THE DOCUMENT OR THE PERFORMANCE OR IMPLEMENTATION OF THE CONTENTS THEREOF. TRADEMARK NOTICE "PLAYSTATION" and "PS3" are registered trademarks of Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. "Cell Broadband Engine" is a trademark of Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. Linux® is the registered trademark of Linus Torvalds in the U.S. and other countries. Other company, product and service names may be registered trademarks, trademarks or service marks of others. ABOUT THIS DOCUMENT This note describes how to setup your PS3 to load the second stage kernel from a TFTP server and how to setup an NFS mounted root file system. You can always find the latest version of this document, and some other useful technical documents here: http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/people/geoff/cell/ Please send comments to . PS3 NFS ROOT HOWTO 1) Setup DHCP Server Setup the DHCP server on your host machine as described in the PS3 Linux Distributor's Starter Kit document 'How to Enable Your Distro'. See the man pages for dhcpd and dhcpd.conf, and/or the documentation for the distribution installed on your host. This discussion uses the following as an example dhcpd.conf entry: host ps3 { hardware ethernet aa:bb:cc:dd:ee:ff; fixed-address 192.168.1.50; option host-name "ps3"; next-server 192.168.1.2; filename "/ps3/boot/vmlinux"; option root-path "192.168.1.2:/target/ps3"; } 2) Install Linux Distro Install the distro of your choice onto the PS3 hard disk as normal, checking that the system boots correctly into Linux. 3) Setup TFTP Server Setup the TFTP server on your host machine. See the man pages for tftpd and xinetd, and/or the documentation for the distribution installed on your host. This discussion uses the following as an example xinetd.d/tftp entry: service tftp { ... server_args = -v -s /target only_from = 192.168.1.0 localhost } Note that this example uses the tftpd -s option, which is not specified in the default configuration of some distributions. Also, when seting up the tftp server configuration consider the security implications of your configuration. To test the TFTP server, copy the second stage kernel image from the PS3 hard disk onto the TFTP server. The proper location on the server is dictated by the dhcpd.conf statements next-server and filename, and the tftp server directory. For the above example dhcpd.conf, the location would be '192.168.1.2:/target/ps3/boot/vmlinux'. [@host]# mkdir -p /target/ps3/boot/ [@host]# scp 192.168.1.50:/boot/vmlinux-2.6.xx /target/ps3/boot/vmlinux This kernel can be test loaded from the petitboot prompt: ps3-linux: tftp -g -l test -r /ps3/boot/vmlinux 192.168.1.2 Note that if the NFS server has not been configured or if the second stage kernel has not been built with NFS root file system support the kernel will panic with the message 'Unable to mount root fs'. This is expected behavior for this test. 4) Setup NFS Server Setup the NFS server on your host machine as described in the PS3 Linux Distributor's Starter Kit document 'How to Enable Your Distro'. See the man pages for exports and mount, and/or the documentation for the distribution installed on your host. Reboot the PS3 and get to the petitboot shell prompt. Execute commands similar to these: ps3-linux: killall pb-discover ps3-linux: mkdir /local ps3-linux: mount /dev/ps3da1 /local ps3-linux: mkdir /remote ps3-linux: mount -o nolock 192.168.1.2:/target /remote ps3-linux: cp -a /local /remote/ps3 ps3-linux: rm -rf /remote/ps3/lost+found 4a) Fedora, YDL Several Fedora fixups are needed to the PS3's remote file system to support NFS use. Edit the file /target/ps3/etc/fstab to use the NFS root by changing the line LABEL=/ / ext3 defaults 1 1 to /dev/nfs / rootfs defaults 0 0 Remove the eth0 config file, since the startup scripts will try to re-initialize the interface, which then disconnects the root fs. [@host]# rm /target/ps3/etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0 Make a node for the console device on the NFS file system. [@host]# mknod /target/ps3/dev/console c 5 1 4b) Debian, Ubuntu (and other Debian based) Several Debian fixups are needed to the PS3's remote file system to support NFS use. Edit the file /target/ps3/etc/fstab to use the NFS root by changing the line UUID=xxxxxxxxxxx / ext3 defaults,errors=remount-ro 0 1 to /dev/nfs / rootfs defaults 0 0 Set the eth0 entry in the config file /etc/network/interfaces to manual, since the startup scripts will try to re-initialize the interface, which then disconnects the root file system. # The primary network interface manual eth0 iface eth0 inet dhcp 4c) TODO Explain changes needed to files on server (fstab, etc.) for other distros. 5) Build Kernel With NFS Root Support Build and install a kernel with NFS root file system support on the TFTP server at '192.168.1.2:/target/ps3/boot/vmlinux'. See the file Documentation/nfsroot.txt in the kernel sources, and documentation for the Linux distribution you installed on your PS3.