More on NFS problem

[Joe_Wulf]

The anaconda portions of the boot (with DHCP and tftp) go very well. I can see in
VC3 and VC4 that the booted system gets all the right network attributes and have
carefully verified them (hostname, IP, GW, dns, NM, broadcast, network,
next_server, and domain). In VC3, eventually, I get the error message "reverse
name lookup failed", then it says "failed to mount nfs source". It displays a url
and file location, both of which are, in fact, correct. Efforts at toying with
various anaconda options for the pxeconfig isolinux file provide no improvement.

On the kickstart server, I configure it for use of a MAC address for another
system that I've successfully kickstarted before (within dhcp and the
tftp/pxeconfig link), boot that other system and the installation goes perfectly
to completion. The nfs mount occurs instantly here, where it times out and fails
on the other server. I switch the MAC address back on the kickstart server to the
problem box (no other changes to this world) and the NFS fails at the same point
again. When manually attempting to continue the build interactively, the
information is given for the NFS server (192.168.10.2) and the directory
(/kickstart/ks-files/ks.cfg) but always results in the error message "That
directory could not be mounted from the server". Yet a manually built VM, on the
same physical server where the kickstarted VM is can immediately mount the exact
same path without fail.

The physical network is a 4-port Linksys hub (yes hub), 1 PC with Fedora 7
installed and configured for the kickstart server, one Dell XPS laptop with
VMware Workstation v6 installed (32 bit VM's kickstarted into here always install
successfully) and a MacPro with Windoze XP 64 bit installed and it also has
VMware Workstation v6 installed (32/64bit VM's kickstarted into here ALWAYS
exhibit the problems outlined above). Regardless of isolating this hub from the
internet or making it standalone, the results are the same.

To do other troubleshooting, I've 'shared' the C: drive of the MacPro, mapped it
into a drive letter on the Dell, pointed VMware on the Dell to the mounted
filesystem on the Mac for the 'problem' VM and it boots, installs to completion 3
times in a row. I try it natively on the Mac again, with failure as before. I've
temporarily replaces Windoze XP on the Mac with Windoze 2003, and the VM died at
the same place.
Also, I can successfully manually build, via ISO image any RHEL AS4, RHEL5,
Fedora 7 OS I want, either 32 and/or 64 bit on the MacPro. Subsequently to the
build, NFS mounts work correctly.

Unfortunately, entries to the RedHat kickstart mailing list didn't provide any
useful help. One suggestion was to switch over to squid and apache on the
kickstart server and 'try' that. Not good suggestions for me in resolving an NFS
problem within anaconda. My customer has a pretty widely installed base deployed
via NFS based kickstart servers. Nor am I familiar with squid/apache and their
complexities.

Reviews of /var/log/messages on the kickstart server show only normal DHCP
handshaking. No DNS, DHCP or NFS errors. Any suggestions on what I can do to
temporarily elevate the volume of messages those services provide into syslog, or
some other log file for review for problems that I'm not aware of yet??? Any
suggestions on what I can do to further troubleshoot this NFS mount problem?

R,
-Joe

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