I ran into a similar problem here. If you're using a switched network, and you are connected to Cisco Switches, then you might be running into the same thing I did. Cisco Catalysts have a feature called 'Spanning Tree', where the switch broadcasts your mac address and figures out shortest route, etc etc. This will take about 5-10 seconds, depending on the network. Some network cards will bring the interface up and then down multiple times during the initial phases of a kickstart (sis 900's are bad about this), and so your port on the switch spends most of it's time in the Spanning mode, where it can't forward any packets, and so your kickstart times out before it can get a valid DHCP request through. You can tell if this is your problem by checking out where the port your plugged into terminates, and seeing if the status LED for that port is amber, then change to green, then back to amber, and so on. If this IS the problem, speak to your network admin about turning on portfast for the ports you're trying to use to kickstart off of. This solved the problem, for me, but be away portfast has it's drawbacks too. Chris Meisinger -----Original Message----- From: kickstart-list-admin@xxxxxxxxxx [mailto:kickstart-list-admin@xxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Michael Komitee Sent: Monday, August 05, 2002 5:25 PM To: kickstart-list@xxxxxxxxxx Cc: Michael Komitee Subject: PXE+DHCP/BOOTP+Kickstart problem I'm using pxelinux, dhcpd (v2.0pl5), tftp, and kickstart to install redhat 7.2 on IBM x330's. Anaconda cannot get a dhcp address, mind you it gets one fine during the pxeboot process, and gets one fine after the kickstart install fails and i configure dhcp within anaconda and do a manual install. I ran a sniffer and observed a problem with the dhcp transaction. Normally, the transaction is as follows Discovery (client) Offer (server) Request (client) ACK (server) all 4 packets have 1 transaction id. the attempted transaction in question works as follows: Discovery (client) Discovery (client) Offer (server) Offer (server) --and it fails... all 4 of these packets have a single transaction id as well. I'm not sure if its a problem with the client or the server. If it's the client, Id guess theres a problem with my default config file for pxelinux, and if it's the server i'd guess its a problem with my dhcpd.conf. Any suggestions? Here's my setup: /tftpboot/initrd.img /tftpboot/vmlinuz /tftpboot/pxelinux.cfg/default #/tftpboot/pxelinux.cfg/default default linux prompt 1 timeout 30 label linux kernel /vmlinuz append load_ramdisk=1 ramdisk_size=32768 initrd=/initrd.img ksdevice=eth0 ks=nfs:/172.16.6.2/kickstart/ks/ksf.cfg (it's one line in the file) #/etc/dhcpd.conf allow bootp; default-lease-time 259200; #3 day lease max-lease-time 691200; #8 day maximum lease option routers 172.16.6.1; #default gateway option subnet-mask 255.255.255.0; option domain-name "ourdomain.net"; option domain-name-servers 172.16.1.6,172.16.1.7; option broadcast-address 172.16.6.255; filename "/kickstart/ks/ksf.cfg"; next-server 172.16.6.2; group { #PXE Boot Information filename "pxelinux.0"; use-host-decl-names on; host pxeboot1 { hardware ethernet 00:02:55:C7:FD:CD; fixed-address 172.16.6.254; } host pxeboot2 { hardware ethernet 00:02:55:C6:1B:C9; fixed-address 172.16.6.253; } } #range subnet 172.16.6.0 netmask 255.255.255.0 { range dynamic-bootp 172.16.6.129 172.16.6.252; } my exports are fine. /kickstart/ks is exported to the correct network. (the reason I have the seemingly redundant directories of /kickstart/ks is so that I can have a seperate share with different permissions (writable) called /kickstart/logs where I store mac-address labeled logs of the kickstart install. when i used the same kickstart file (which i wont include because thats not the problem) and boot via a disk and use this dhcp server (without the allow bootp, or the pxe boot group) the kickstart install works fine. Thanks for the help in advance. _______________________________________________ Kickstart-list mailing list Kickstart-list@xxxxxxxxxx https://listman.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/kickstart-list
