[CentOS] kickstart problems
Paolo Supino
paolo.supino at gmail.com
Wed Sep 3 20:41:50 UTC 2008
On Wed, Sep 3, 2008 at 5:52 PM, Marco Fretz <mailinglist at blah.li> wrote:
> hi,
>
> we had the same problem with newer HP pcs and servers (broadcom nics).
> pxe works well on broadcom, the install not. doesn't matter if you're
> using kickstart or manual install.
>
> the problem was in centos 4.2. after updating the install environment to
> 4.5 the problem was gone... so it was a driver issue! the install kernel
> is not exactly the normal linux kernel i think.
>
> if anaconda just says that it cannot find install image, etc. the system
> has no connectivity at this time.
>
> hope this is helpful...
>
> bests
> marco
>
> Paolo Supino wrote:
> >
> >
> > On Tue, Sep 2, 2008 at 3:07 PM, Romeo Ninov <rninov at gmail.com
> > <mailto:rninov at gmail.com>> wrote:
> >
> >
> >
> > Paolo Supino wrote / napísal(a):
> >
> >
> >
> > On Tue, Sep 2, 2008 at 2:17 PM, Romeo Ninov <rninov at gmail.com
> > <mailto:rninov at gmail.com> <mailto:rninov at gmail.com
> > <mailto:rninov at gmail.com>>> wrote:
> >
> >
> >
> > Paolo Supino wrote / napísal(a):
> >
> >
> >
> > On Tue, Sep 2, 2008 at 8:14 AM, nate
> > <centos at linuxpowered.net <mailto:centos at linuxpowered.net>
> > <mailto:centos at linuxpowered.net
> > <mailto:centos at linuxpowered.net>>
> > <mailto:centos at linuxpowered.net
> > <mailto:centos at linuxpowered.net>
> >
> > <mailto:centos at linuxpowered.net
> > <mailto:centos at linuxpowered.net>>>> wrote:
> >
> > Paolo Supino wrote:
> > > Hi Nate
> > >
> >
> > > 3: After the error comes up I get the HTTP setup
> > configuration
> > screen with
> > > the source website (in IP) and CentOS directory as I
> > entered
> > them in the
> > > pxeconfiguration file and as it appears in the
> kickstart
> > configuration file
> > > and all I have to do is press the 'OK' button to
> > continue the
> > installation
> > > to a successful completion.
> >
> > If that's the case the next most likely culprit is
> >
> > > url --url http://192.168.11.1/source
> >
> >
> > Just because the PXE boot loader can download the
> > kickstart
> > config does not mean that the installation process
> > will work
> > with that NIC.
> >
> > Also I've had lots of broadcom systems not work with
> > kickstart over
> > the years, it's not uncommon for newer systems to have
> > newer
> > revs of the chipsets and those revs not being
> > supported by the
> > installer.
> >
> > But it sounds like in your case it does work, so I
> > would look
> > at the url above, as it likely is the cause of the
> > problem.
> > Check
> > the http access logs on the server for 404s and
> > similar errors.
> >
> > nate
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > CentOS mailing list
> > CentOS at centos.org <mailto:CentOS at centos.org>
> > <mailto:CentOS at centos.org <mailto:CentOS at centos.org>>
> > <mailto:CentOS at centos.org <mailto:CentOS at centos.org>
> > <mailto:CentOS at centos.org <mailto:CentOS at centos.org>>>
> >
> >
> > http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
> >
> >
> >
> > Hi Nate
> >
> > After figuring what I was doing wrong (see previous reply
> > ...) I started going through each of my systems in order
> to
> > boot them and install CentOS 5.2 on each. For the most
> > part it
> > works, but only for the most part? Because once in a few
> > boots
> > (not machine specific) anaconda stops and either asks me
> what
> > interface it needs to configure or fails to load
> 'stage2.img'
> > from the web server on 192.168.11.1 <http://192.168.11.1>
> > <http://192.168.11.1>
> > <http://192.168.11.1> ... All cables are good cables. The
> > network switch is a Cisco 3750G with no configuration)
> > and all
> > the NICs are broadcom with firmware 3.8.9.
> > <http://3.8.9.> <http://3.8.9.>
> > <http://3.8.9.> Can you throw a guess where the problem
> might
> > be lying (I hate inconsistencies)?
> >
> >
> > Have you check apache logs for something. Check also the
> server
> > messages
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > CentOS mailing list
> > CentOS at centos.org <mailto:CentOS at centos.org>
> > <mailto:CentOS at centos.org <mailto:CentOS at centos.org>>
> > http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
> >
> >
> > Hi Romeo
> >
> > Yes I did, and nothing shows up in either access_log or
> > error_log :-(
> > I just had a node that stopped asking me for IP configuration
> > (twice) and only on the second time (checked on the server using
> > tcpdump) did it actually try to contact the server to retrieve
> > network configuration continue and it successfully retrieved
> > 'stage2.img' from the web server :-(
> >
> > Paolo, what about DHCP or bootp servers. Check the logs, flush ARP
> > cache from server(s)
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > CentOS mailing list
> > CentOS at centos.org <mailto:CentOS at centos.org>
> > http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
> >
> >
> > Hi Romeo
> >
> > The more systems I boot the more I'm starting to feel that it's
> > hardware problem related ... I just booted a system in which the ELOM
> > says that NIC0 has 1 MAC address, but when I boot the system I saw on
> > the network a different MAC address altogether ...
> > I'm checking at the lowest level: on the wire (using tcpdump) so if
> > nothing shows in the capture I'm sure I won't find anything in the logs
> :-(
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > --
> > TIA
> > Paolo
> >
> >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
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> _______________________________________________
> CentOS mailing list
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>
Hi Marco
Thanx for the email. I've been debugging this problem for a few days and a
few installs before I posted the first email in this thread I started
sniffing the network interface on the server (dhcp, tftp, http are all on
the same computer) and I noticed that no communication reaches the server
between the PXE load and the retrieval error (and I think I wrote about it
in my original post). Some people suggested that it might be that Linux gets
confused in the interfaces (the Sun X2200 M2 has 4 NICs), which I find hard
to believe (Linux kernel is old enough and probably got rid of these kind of
bugs a long time ago). In some of the failures the kernel loaded, retrieved
the kickstart configuration file and than failed to retrieve 'stage2.img'
(again nothing appeared on the wire). I have a sneaky feeling that the
kickstart process assumes a lot of basic facts and doesn't do any/enough
sanity checking. Right now I need to get this cluster up and running (I'm
already 2 weeks behind schedule). After it's up I will try to debug the
process.
The situation got me so aggravated that I was contemplating resurrecting
my old private distro (not going to do that) that does things in a much
simpler way.
--
ttyl
Paolo
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