12.04.4 alternate network-boot installation: how to enable NFS?

[henrylaw]

I have a PXE server supplying images to clients on 10.18.78.0/24. I routinely boot Ubuntu 12.04 with the graphical (casper) install but I want to use the alternate install instead. Everything I try ends up with the installer asking for a mirror and then downloading from there, rather than from the NFS share which contains the contents of the 12.04 alternate ISO.

Here's /home/tftpboot/pxelinux.cfg/default:

DEFAULT menu.c32
PROMPT 0
NOESCAPE 0
ALLOWOPTIONS 0
TIMEOUT 600

MENU TITLE Boot images

LABEL Ubuntu alternate install
kernel ubuntu/12.04.4-alternate-i386/ubuntu-installer/i386/linux
append root=/dev/nfs initrd=ubuntu/12.04.4-alternate-i386/ubuntu-installer/i386/initrd.gz boot=nfs nfsroot=10.18.78.254:/home/iso/ubuntu-12.04.4-alternate-i386 -- quiet

LABEL Ubuntu Install
kernel vmlinuz
append boot=casper netboot=nfs nfsroot=10.18.78.254:/home/iso/ubuntu-12.04.4-desktop-i386 initrd=initrd.lz -- splash only-ubiquity

"Alternate install" is the one I'm working on; "Ubuntu Install" works fine.

I've tried the "append" statment with and without '/dev/nfs'; I've tried boot=nfs and netboot=nfs (which latter works for vmlinuz/casper). I've looked for documentation of the parameters for the "linux" boot kernel without success. Can someone point me in the right direction?

I've got twelve clients to build and I don't want to download the whole of 12.04 from an internet mirror each time!

[henrylaw]

I got round this by installing via HTTP; see my other thread at http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2213961 . I guess since I now know you can enter your own mirror (see that thread) possibly one could enter the NFS server instead; dunno and I haven't tried it.