diskless problems

[Robert Watson]

On Sat, 10 Jan 2004, Dag-Erling Smørgrav wrote:

> Robert Watson <rwatson at freebsd.org> writes:
> > Can you send "tcpdump -e" output?
> 
> 22:18:14.884745 0:40:63:c4:60:3d ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff 0800 590: 0.0.0.0.68 > 255.255.255.255.67:  xid:0x64c4603d secs:4 flags:0x8000 [|bootp]
> 22:18:16.911162 0:40:63:c4:60:3d ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff 0800 590: 0.0.0.0.68 > 255.255.255.255.67:  xid:0x64c4603d secs:4 flags:0x8000 [|bootp]
> 22:18:16.919251 0:40:63:c4:60:3d ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff 0806 60: arp who-has 10.0.0.4 tell 10.0.0.9
> 22:18:17.134219 0:40:63:c4:60:3d ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff 0800 590: 10.0.0.9.68 > 255.255.255.255.67:  xid:0x3d60c464 file ""[|bootp]
> 22:18:17.135119 8:0:2b:86:88:55 0:40:63:c4:60:3d 0800 348: 10.0.0.6.67 > 10.0.0.9.68:  xid:0x3d60c464 Y:10.0.0.9 S:10.0.0.4 file ""[|bootp] [tos 0x10]
> 22:18:17.135621 0:40:63:c4:60:3d ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff 0800 590: 10.0.0.9.68 > 255.255.255.255.67:  xid:0x3d60c464 file ""[|bootp]
> 22:18:17.136477 8:0:2b:86:88:55 0:40:63:c4:60:3d 0800 348: 10.0.0.6.67 > 10.0.0.9.68:  xid:0x3d60c464 Y:10.0.0.9 S:10.0.0.4 [|bootp] [tos 0x10]
> 22:18:38.239936 0:40:63:c4:60:3d ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff 0800 1502: 0.0.0.0.68 > 255.255.255.255.67:  xid:0xffff0001 flags:0x8000 [|bootp] [ttl 1]
> 
> > What kernel configuration are you using?  Are there multiple ethernet
> > devices in the system?
> 
> I followed the advice from the diskless(8) man page.  There's only one
> interface, and tcpdump clearly shows that the DHCP server recieves a
> request but does not answer. 

I was a bit surprised to see 'vr0', since PXE is almost always used with
fxp drivers.

> >                         Normally if you're using pxeboot for diskless
> > booting, there's no need for the kernel or userspace to use DHCP: they
> > inherit the DHCP settings provided by the pxeboot loader using the kernel
> > environment.  When using PXE, there's no need for any special kernel
> > options, etc, you should just be able to use GENERIC.
> 
> I'll try again without the BOOTP options... 

Yeah.  Our PXE booting support isn't really the same as the traditional
diskless booting environment.  If we don't have a PXE manpage, we probably
should have one, since it's actually pretty easy to use.  I use PXE
booting extensively in my test environment, and it makes life much, much
easier.  I'm sure we have some worked examples posted around, but if not,
I can post the details of my configuration.

Robert N M Watson             FreeBSD Core Team, TrustedBSD Projects
robert at fledge.watson.org      Senior Research Scientist, McAfee Research