unable to allocate pty when ssh to Fedora 6 nfsroot

Hello all,

I am unable to ssh into a diskless host running Fedora.  When I boot
into the golden image (same kernel and root files), I can ssh.
Perhaps I'm missing something?

Description:  Fedora 6 - kernel:  2.6.22.14 which I recompiled in
order to make the necessary kernel changes to support NFSROOT.

Problem:  The host boots ok via PXE as expected.  I can login into the
host via tty.  Attempts to ssh from another host causes it to hang.  I
checked its /var/log/secure message and found the following:

Feb 28 17:55:09 localhost sshd[2964]: Accepted password for sofia from
127.0.0.1 port 36123 ssh2
Feb 28 17:55:09 localhost sshd[2964]: error: openpty: No such file or
directory
Feb 28 17:55:09 localhost sshd[2966]: error: session_pty_req: session
0 alloc failed

1.  I also tried to ssh to localhost on the machine, it hangs too.
2.  I looked at the /dev/pts - and I notice that nothing is created
there.
3.  I boot into the golden image running same kernel but root is on
disk.  I can successfully ssh into this box; and notice that when
ssh'ing the /dev/pts/0 directory(ies) are created appropriately.

4.  As I googled further ... I stumbled into a suggestion to perform
the following:

ssh <host> bash -i

I performed this, and I am able to ssh into the box:

[sofia@test1 tmp]# ssh 192.168.16.29 bash -i
sofia@192.168.16.29's password:
[sofia@localhost ~]# ls -al
total 200

....

Any thought?  Perhaps I'm missing something obvious ...(or did I miss
some relevant files when I tar'ed into my NFS/PXE server?).

Thanks in advance.


-- 
best,

Vince