Kickstart via PXE/NFS

Mon May 14 20:03:21 UTC 2007

I had a similar issue.  I had only one NIC cabled to the switch.  The
initial DHCP request was successful but it would fail on finding the
ks.cfg file.

I ended up turning off all the NICs in the bios and this helped.

________________________________

From: kickstart-list-bounces at redhat.com
[mailto:kickstart-list-bounces at redhat.com] On Behalf Of
secroft at micron.com
Sent: Monday, May 14, 2007 4:02 PM
To: kickstart-list at redhat.com
Cc: kickstart-list-bounces at redhat.com
Subject: RE: Kickstart via PXE/NFS

For the second interface, try turning it off in the bios. I believe
you're running into an enumeration problem with the onboard NIC's.
Whether you have it plugged in or not, it is probably where the issue
is.

________________________________

From: kickstart-list-bounces at redhat.com
[mailto:kickstart-list-bounces at redhat.com] On Behalf Of
SSTinsley at upsfreight.com
Sent: Monday, May 14, 2007 1:39 PM
To: Discussion list about Kickstart
Cc: Discussion list about Kickstart; kickstart-list-bounces at redhat.com
Subject: RE: Kickstart via PXE/NFS

kickstart-list-bounces at redhat.com wrote on 05/14/2007 02:48:04 PM:

> How many NIC's do you have in the box?  Are they all embedded, or 
> are there some on cards? 

2 NICs. Only one is active an plugged in to a switch. 

While it may be powerful, it seems to be way more complicated than
should be required. 

If the server can find its initial IP via DHCP to load pxelinux and to
load the kernel, why is it 
unable to complete the last step and locate the kickstart file? I have
specified the ksdevice 
several different ways and none have been successful (ksdevice=eth0,
=link, =bootip with ipappend, =eth1) 
and in all cases anaconda ends up unable to get the IP and prompts me
for static network configuration. 
I enter the needed network information and provide the NFS information
to reach the RH install image and 
the box is able to read the o/s image and start an interactive install. 

I have also dropped to command line (ctl-alt-f2) and verified that the
nfs directory holding the KS file 
can be mounted. And I have verified it can be retrieved with http using
wget. And still anaconda is 
unable to retrieve the file with either nfs or http. 

>   
> Kickstart is a very powerful and useful tool that we use globally to
> build over 1000 distributed systems each year from a centralized and
> managed location, and although it has bugs like any product, most 
> issues like you are having tend to be infrastructure or manufacturer
related. 
>   
> From: kickstart-list-bounces at redhat.com [mailto:kickstart-list-
> bounces at redhat.com] On Behalf Of SSTinsley at upsfreight.com
> Sent: Monday, May 14, 2007 11:36 AM
> To: Discussion list about Kickstart
> Cc: Discussion list about Kickstart; kickstart-list-bounces at redhat.com
> Subject: Re: Kickstart via PXE/NFS

> 
> I made a change to pxe cfg file to have ks.cfg file read via http. 
> 
> It fails too. However, if I look in the anaconda log I see the 
> message getting ks.cfg 
> but then failed to transfer ks.cfg to fd. The snoop from the KS 
> server side shows the HTTP 
> retrieval of the KS config file. Is it really trying to use an fd 
> device, a floppy? These 
> Dell servers do not include floppys. 
> 
> Redhat sure has taken something that should be relatively easy and 
> made it a pain in the butt. 
>   
> 
> kickstart-list-bounces at redhat.com wrote on 05/14/2007 01:29:54 PM:
> 
> > if you page-up in vty3, can you see what your kernel command line
is?
> > alternately if it makes it to shell in vty2, 'cat /proc/cmdline' - i
> > wonder if it's actually doing the ipappend stuff. you might need a
> > newer pxelinux.0 if not. also, instead of 'ksdevice=bootif' you can
do
> > 'ksdevice=link ip=dhcp'  ; the bootif argument is more useful if you
> > have 2 nics enabled/link-up and want to make sure it doesnt pxeboot
> > out one interface and then ks out the other.
> > 
> > -=Eric
> > 
> > _______________________________________________
> > Kickstart-list mailing list
> > Kickstart-list at redhat.com
> > https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/kickstart-list 
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