Steve, I have automated generation of the bootdisk.img, in a way where it takes params from CGI, builds new ks.cfg based on params, and then stuffs it into initrd (rdstuff). It's the attached to the system through virtual media. The process takes about 1 minute to the server booting floppy, but it's too much time. I was just testing a new piece of equipment that came in and the server has 4 network ifaces and has feeds to 3 subnets. I didn't know which iface was eth0 which eth3 I also didn't know what subnet is associated with which nic. Yes it does sound strange but it does happen. Anyways, I have co-workers that are using my build and sometimes they can't proceed because they can't retrieve the netstg2 image and all that. So it always comes back to me ;) Some time ago I was speaking to an Intel hardware vendor about introducing a check-net type of a thing from their remote management card. Now that the industry is strongly considering SMASH CLP, this would be akin to Sun's "watch-net"... So... I was wondering if there could be a simple thing in anaconda that's basically - ethtool/mii-tool/tcpdump combo - ok, are we on the subnet? Right, can we ping the remote server? [if not, display in English - dude, I'm not sensing the connection, link down ] - right, can we get to it on port (21, 80, else?) [ if not, dude, your connection is live and good, yes I'm on the network, but the server is down ] right, is the image available [ no there's not even a build tree there, pointing to the right directory ? ] , right - build. Instead there's a "reverse DNS lookup 5 second"... Well that's cryptic ;) Thanks, Roman Lazarev Fidelity Investment Management Technology 245 Summer Street V2E Boston, MA 02210 (617) 563-1173 -----Original Message----- From: Steven Augart [mailto:saugart@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] Sent: Monday, May 15, 2006 6:40 PM To: Lazarev, Roman Cc: anaconda-devel-list@xxxxxxxxxx Subject: Re: Detecting network failure Lazarev, Roman wrote: > It also is time consuming to regenerate images every time I want to > test another interface. This comment is intriguing. What do you mean by "regenerate images every time I want to test another interface" ? Do you mean that you're testing different kinds of network interfaces, or is there something else going on here? > Is it possible/is there already a stub that tests network connectivity > and says - yes, I'm able to communicate - in plain English language ;) I'm sorry, I don't understand what you mean by "a stub". Are you hacking on Anaconda and adding features to the Python components? My experience with Anaconda guts is almost entirely with the C loader stage. --Steven Augart
