confusion of installation process

[Ray Van Dolson]

On Thu, Jan 11, 2007 at 12:54:40PM -0800, Shabazian, Chip wrote:
> The NIC is cycled 3 times, the first is during the PXEBoot process, and
> is done by the system.  The second is done by the boot kernel, and is
> done to get the kickstart file, the third is to actually build the
> system.
> 
> Every time, the system reloads the drivers.  This allows using different
> NIC's or different IP's for different purposes if necessary.

Good to know.  Thanks.

> It is an incredible annoyance when you have to deal with spanning tree,
> but there have been options added in later versions that allow delays to
> compensate for this.

I assume you are referring to nicdelay and linksleep?  Are there any others?
I've been trying to get this to work on a RHEL4 U4 system on a switch with
Spanning Tree enabled.  Even with long delays I am unable to get pump to get
an IP address.  I don't understand how, when the system is installed, ISC's
dhcp client is able to get an IP no problem (after a delay of course).

Would be interested to see typical nicdelay and linksleep settings used by
posters on this list to work around STP.

Unfortunately, it's a bit of a process to convince the network admins to shut
STP off on switchports to which no switches are attached. :)

Ray