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Symptoms of my problem...
I have been working on this issue for some time and have
narrowed it down to a problem - apparently
with the ethernet port being used.
- I can
run an interactive install using the pxeboot / NFS share just fine - I can install to all combinations of
machines.
- When I try to do a kickstart install (on a SuperMicro
X5DPR-TG2+ motherboard
(Intel 82546DB on-motherboard NIC), the NFS mount
fails and it will not read the kickstart file.
- When I
try to do a kickstart install (on a Dell 1600sc w/GBit ethernet on the motherboard -
Intel 82540EM), the NFS mount fails
and it will not read the kickstart file.
- When I put
the kickstart file on a floppy, it read the kickstart file but still fails on
the NFS mount.
- I installed a 3Com 3C905C ethernet card in the Dell
1600sc and used it to install - NFS mount has no
problems.
- I can use a Dell 350 w/100MB ethernet, and
the kickstart runs through to completion - NFS mount has no
problems. I ran into a
similar problem when I first set this system up for running a diskless
workstation via PXEBOOT.
In this case
it was the dhcp lease that was failing - I
edited the boot script and forced it to try
multiple times to
get a dhcp lease - the problem went away. This indicates a timing
problem..
(I was using all
Dell 1600sc's when I did this).
I've seen writeups
on this problem as far back as a year ago where they believe fast machines
(or slow switches)
cause this type of behavior. I'm surprised there aren't more
complaints on
the mailing list
based on the amount of problems I've encountered. Of course this
is in
anaconda for the
kickstart case - I'm not familiar enough with python and the whole
building process yet
to tackle solving what I suspect is simply a case of the software
not waiting long
enough for the NFS mount to succeed.
I'm going to be setting up several of these machines and do
not want to add a NIC just to install.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
My environment is as follows:
Netgear unmanaged
Gigabit switch (I've tried others as well)
DHCP/TFTP/PXE/NFS
Server- (all
running on one host)
Dell 1600sc
Fedora Core 1 (released version)
Single 2.8 GHz Xeon, 1 Gb network (1 NIC is on
the motherboard)
36 GB Ultra 320 SCSI hard drive
I've installed
Core 1 and Core 2 test 1 & 2 interactively (using PXEBOOT) with no
problems.
I've tried to use
kickstart with Core 1 and Core 2 test 2.
Hosts that
fail NFS mount with trying to run kickstart
Dell 1600sc (I've tried several of these with same results)
Single 2.8 GHz Xeon, 1 Gb network (1 NIC is on
the motherboard)
Several different hard drive configurations tried
Ultra 320
SCSI
ATA-100 IDE
SATA (using promise SATA
controller)
Hosts that
successfully run kickstart
Dell 350
750 MHz Pentium 3, 10/100 Mb network (2 NICs are on
the motherboard)
ATA-66
IDE
Dell 1600sc
2.8 GHz Xeon,
10/100 Mb network - added card - 3Com 3C905C-TXM
Ultra 320
SCSI
Thanks,
Joe |
