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[Ed Brown]

Thanks for bringing the historical perspective to this question, it 
has indeed been kicked around for years now.  But I disagree with the 
assertion that it's only a Cisco problem.  I remember at least two 
other switch manufacturers involved, including my direct experience 
with 3com gigabit switches.  Also, it hasn't only caused problems for 
pxe/dhcp installs, but also static ip installs using http and ftp. 
The only common factors seem to have been gigabit switches/nics, STP, 
and anaconda.

Wherever the root causes lay, it's a problem during redhat 
installations, and no other circumstances, that I know about anyway. 
If it CAN be fixed or worked around in anaconda, then it should be, if 
only for the sake of RedHat's reputation and their customers' 
experience.  While I don't understand all the issues involved, I do 
appreciate the recent options intended to help in these situations, 
and hope your additional suggestions are acted on too.

-Ed


Shabazian, Chip wrote:
>  
> While I completely agree that this is something that has been a hassle
> and has been the source of more problems than anything I've seen related
> to kickstarting systems, we need to keep in mind that these workarounds
> are being put into place to deal with a "feature" of the switch.
> Wouldn't it be better for Cisco to fix STP so that if it saw a DHCP
> packet, it would forward that packet while it determines if it's going
> to allow that port on the network?  I can't imagine any loops being
> created by forwarding and responding to DHCP packets while ensuring
> there are no loops.
>  
> We always see this problem on Cisco gear, and in the past 4+ years, I've
> only seen this issue as a possibility on one other type of switch (but
> the person never responded to the list on whether or not the known Cisco
> workarounds helped), yet people think this is an "anaconda" or
> "kickstart" problem, not a "Cisco" problem.
>  
> Now, *I* sure would like to see the timeout for pump increased from 30
> seconds to 60 seconds, but that would probably piss off even MORE people
> since I'm sure there are a lot more people who get frustrated waiting 30
> seconds for pump to timeout during boot if their dhcp server is down, or
> if they have more than one interface and don't know how to turn off dhcp
> on the unused interfaces, etc.
>  
> I guess the ideal solution would be an option for pump that does
> increase the timeout that could be passed from anaconda, or an option in
> anaconda such as dhcpretry=X where you could set the system to retry
> dhcp X number of times without recycling the NIC and starting the
> negotiation dance again.
>  
> But at the end of the day, please keep in mind that these are all work
> arounds for the Cisco STP feature, that while valuable, is the actual
> root cause.
>  
> Chip