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 > > > > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > > > > _______________________________________________ > > CentOS mailing list > > CentOS at centos.org > > http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos > _______________________________________________ > CentOS mailing list > CentOS at centos.org > http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos > 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 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://lists.centos.org/pipermail/centos/attachments/20080903/de040ce6/attachment-0005.html>