When the kernel has been loaded by a boot loader (either by loadlin,
LILO or a network boot program) it has to be told what root fs device
to use, and where to find the server and the name of the directory
on the server to mount as root. This can be established by a couple
of kernel command line parameters:
root=/dev/nfs
This is necessary to enable the pseudo-NFS-device. Note that it's not a
real device but just a synonym to tell the kernel to use NFS instead of
a real device.
nfsroot=[:][,]
If the `nfsroot' parameter is NOT given on the command line, the default
"/tftpboot/%s" will be used.
ip=::::::
This parameter tells the kernel how to configure IP addresses of devices
and also how to set up the IP routing table. It was originally called `nfsaddrs',
but now the boot-time IP configuration works independently of NFS, so it
was renamed to `ip' and the old name remained as an alias for compatibility
reasons.
If this parameter is missing from the kernel command line, all fields are
assumed to be empty, and the defaults mentioned below apply. In general
this means that the kernel tries to configure everything using both
RARP and DHCP/BOOTP (depending on what has been enabled during kernel
configuration, and if both what protocol answer got in first).