NetInstall/NetBoot Failure in High Sierra Server [ NFS Errors ]

[l008com]

I'm an independent Mac tech and I use NetBoot all the time to repair people's Macs. I switched to it way back when Apple started removing Firewire ports. I knew I needed a different way to get in to broken Macs, and NetBoot had lots of advantages (work on multiple Macs at once, different operating system version etc)

So for many years now, I've run Server on my laptop, loaded up with OSes from 10.3 Panther to 10.13 High Sierra. The laptop itself is always current, running High Sierra 10.13.1 right now.

Well right now, my netboot server is not working. I don't know why. I'm also not sure if it was working when I originally upgraded from 10.12.5 to 10.13.0. I *think* it has worked under 10.13 but I'm not certain.

The problem is the following error. Any client trying to boot off of my server get this error, regardless of which netboot images they choose:

I know the images themselves are good. I have all of the same images on a mac mini home server also running NetBoot Server. All the images work off of that server just fine. And I've re-copied them all to the laptop just to be safe, still nothing. FYI the home server is still only on 10.11. Haven't gotten around to upgrading yet.

When googling this problem, you only find one instance over it. And the solution is to delete the NetBoot image folder and re-create it. I've tried that and it did not work. I turned NetBoot off, deleted all of the files entirely, turn it back on, then recopied my images into the new folder. Still nothing.

Unfortunately there's not a whole lot else I can think to try. There aren't that many settings for NetBoot. You pick a location, copy in some images, pick some interfaces, and that's it. Back in the day, there used to be a separate tab for the NFS server, but that's long gone. Based on the one error message, it seems like poking with NFS might be a good place to start. But how can you even do that these days?

I'm also specifically running on HFS+ and not APFS right now, as there is so little support for APFS (even Sierra cannot see an APFS volume, what a terrible way to roll out a new file system!). I doubt this could be the cause of the problem though? NetBoot server ran on HFS+ for 17 years without a problem. But the High Sierra installer automatically converts your volume to APFS. In order to try doing a full reinstall of the OS, I would have to do the install, then do a full backup, then boot off a restore image (actually one of the NetBoot images from my working home server), erase the APFS drive, make an HFS+ drive, and fully restore from my backup. Which I can only do with CarbonCopyCloner because even Apple's own Disk Utility Restore doesn't work properly with APFS yet.

^ that is about the only thing I have left to try that I can think of. Hopefully someone else out there has some better ideas so I don't have to spend 4 hours installing and imaging to fix this.

NFS mount failed: NFS server refused mount, check server configuratoin: root-dmg=file:///BaseSystem.dmg~@/Library/Caches/com.apple.xbs/Sour...

 

[chrfr]

I'm an independent Mac tech and I use NetBoot all the time to repair people's Macs. I switched to it way back when Apple started removing Firewire ports. I knew I needed a different way to get in to broken Macs, and NetBoot had lots of advantages (work on multiple Macs at once, different operating system version etc)

So for many years now, I've run Server on my laptop, loaded up with OSes from 10.3 Panther to 10.13 High Sierra. The laptop itself is always current, running High Sierra 10.13.1 right now.

Well right now, my netboot server is not working. I don't know why. I'm also not sure if it was working when I originally upgraded from 10.12.5 to 10.13.0. I *think* it has worked under 10.13 but I'm not certain.

The problem is the following error. Any client trying to boot off of my server get this error, regardless of which netboot images they choose:

I know the images themselves are good. I have all of the same images on a mac mini home server also running NetBoot Server. All the images work off of that server just fine. And I've re-copied them all to the laptop just to be safe, still nothing. FYI the home server is still only on 10.11. Haven't gotten around to upgrading yet.

When googling this problem, you only find one instance over it. And the solution is to delete the NetBoot image folder and re-create it. I've tried that and it did not work. I turned NetBoot off, deleted all of the files entirely, turn it back on, then recopied my images into the new folder. Still nothing.

Unfortunately there's not a whole lot else I can think to try. There aren't that many settings for NetBoot. You pick a location, copy in some images, pick some interfaces, and that's it. Back in the day, there used to be a separate tab for the NFS server, but that's long gone. Based on the one error message, it seems like poking with NFS might be a good place to start. But how can you even do that these days?

I'm also specifically running on HFS+ and not APFS right now, as there is so little support for APFS (even Sierra cannot see an APFS volume, what a terrible way to roll out a new file system!). I doubt this could be the cause of the problem though? NetBoot server ran on HFS+ for 17 years without a problem. But the High Sierra installer automatically converts your volume to APFS. In order to try doing a full reinstall of the OS, I would have to do the install, then do a full backup, then boot off a restore image (actually one of the NetBoot images from my working home server), erase the APFS drive, make an HFS+ drive, and fully restore from my backup. Which I can only do with CarbonCopyCloner because even Apple's own Disk Utility Restore doesn't work properly with APFS yet.

^ that is about the only thing I have left to try that I can think of. Hopefully someone else out there has some better ideas so I don't have to spend 4 hours installing and imaging to fix this.

Have you tried sharing your images via http instead of NFS?

 

[l008com]

Have you tried sharing your images via http instead of NFS?

I have historically always had bad luck trying to get netboot to work over HTTP. It's always worked reliably over NFS and usually not worked at all over HTTP. I use the web server for other things too, I'm not sure if this is related to why NetBoot over HTTP has never worked reliably?
[doublepost=1512272044][/doublepost]

Have you tried sharing your images via http instead of NFS?

I did just try it as an experiment and it does seem to be working, though not as fast, over HTTP. At least I have a work-around. But I'd prefer to get NFS working again if possible. I'm wondering if it might have been older machines that work better with NFS? And I do fix those from time to time too.


Update:
I still get SOME KP's using HTTP. But further along in the boot process, and they're a kernel_task process crash, not a "can't connect to nfs/http" type of error. This is the kind of bugginess I've always had with HTTP. Which is why I had been using NFS. Hopefully I can get NFS back to make this system reliable again. Without reinstalling my whole system from scratch :/

 

[belvdr]

Generally speaking from a *nix perspective, NFS refusals occur due to one of two things:

The NFS daemons are not running
The client IP is not allowed in the NFS access list

I’m not sure how Apple manages this. Have you changed your subnet recently?

 

[l008com]

Im constantly plugging in to other peoples networks. So yes, my subnet changes all the time. This has never been a problem in the past.
As far as the NFS daemon... Its all part of the netboot service, theres no separate way to turn it on and off that i know of.

 

[jaytv111]

Your first check should be if other machines can mount the NFS shares and access the files. If they can't, then you have server-side problems. If you can, then you may have parameter problems, either on the client or the server.


I'd also check the firewall as well, I often see problems due to the server having the firewall enabled and blocking virtually all the incoming ports, so it should be easy enough to check the firewall, and what you should do is disable the firewall completely (as it can be re-enabled later) and then check whether it's working with the firewall disabled. If you want to keep the firewall enabled you'll have to look up the port ranges you need to enable NFS through incoming firewall rules.

Also you say you can't turn on and off the NFS daemon, well you should be able to, perhaps just by rebooting the server, but there should be ways to start and stop the daemon, perhaps as well by just stopping and starting the netboot service.

Also you mention the filesystem being APFS but that shouldn't be a problem at all, at least not here. With NFS the filesystem is exported to the network and it has no concept of what underlying filesystem there is.

Also you might want to check out a guide on making a network booting server with Linux as well, at least I would just to see if the Mac can network boot with a different server.