Several problems using netboot

[Tamas Pusztai <pusztai@szfki.hu>]

Hello, 


    I have several problems configuring a diskless client for network
  booting:


  Problem 1.  First stage loader
  ------------------------------

    Originally I wanted (and still would like) to use a KTI KF-221TX3
  (DEC21143 chipset) NIC on the client side, but after two days trial
  I gave up.

    Etherboot doesn't even initialize the card (the leds on the back of
  the card remains dark).

    The furthest I could get is with netboot.  Both the dc21x4.com and
  dc.com packet drivers works perfectly under dos.  In spite of this,
  netboot (which is based on these drivers) doesn't work by default.
  The boot process is stuck with the error message "Loader error 11"
  when starting the tftp session.  According to pktwatch on the client
  side and tcpdump on the server side the tftp open request leaves the
  driver, but never gets to the server.
    However, if a skip the media autodetection with specifying the
  "ConnectionType=_100BaseTx" option to the packet driver, I can go
  through the tft session opening and download the kernel image with
  the probability of 90-95%.

    The card should be OK, it works perfectly under linux both with the
  tulip and de4x5 kernel module. Also, server side setup is OK too,
  since the first stage loader (both etherboot and netboot) works
  perfectly with a cheap NE2000 ISA clone.


  Problem 2.  Dynamically linked init
  -----------------------------------

    When the kernel is downloaded and root is mounted through NFS, it
  comes to the launch of init.  I couldn't get init (nor a simple
  hello.c compiled and renamed to init) work if linked dynamically.
  The necessary libs reside (actually, I copied the whole /lib
  directory of the server) where they should, i.e., in /tftpboot/
  /<ipnum>/lib.

    I found a relevant post of Torsten in the netboot list (see
  http://www.han.de/~gero/netboot/archive/msg00058.html) which sounds
  as a possible solution to this problem, but the suggested solution
  (chroot /tftpboot/<ipnum> ldconfig) didn't solve the problem.

    After these, I made a statically linked init which finally didn't
  refuse to start.  But I'd be interested in how to get the 
  dinamically linked init work.


  Problem 3.  NFS server error during init
  ----------------------------------------
  
    I could't enjoy my init running for long, since after the message
  "INIT: version 2.78 booting" it stops with "nfs: server x.x.x.x not
  responding".  I can't see any network activity with tcpdump on the
  server side.


  Sorry for trying your patience with this long list.

  Any help would be highly appreciated.


  Regards,

		Tamas

				


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