[CentOS] CentOS 6 and pxeboot

Tue Apr 11 20:33:07 UTC 2017
m.roth at 5-cent.us <m.roth at 5-cent.us>

Pete Biggs wrote:
>
>>    We've been using pxeboot to pull up a menu, to build or rebuild
>> machines for years. We have this new server, and it fails. Times out.
>> What's happening is that it tries in this order
>>         .../pxelinux.cfg/b8945908-d6a6-41a9-611d-74a6ab80b83d
>>  	.../pxelinux.cfg/01-88-99-aa-bb-cc-dd
>>  	.../pxelinux.cfg/C0A8025B
>>  	.../pxelinux.cfg/C0A8025
>>  	.../pxelinux.cfg/C0A802
>>  	.../pxelinux.cfg/C0A80
>>  	.../pxelinux.cfg/C0A8
>>  	.../pxelinux.cfg/C0A
>>  	.../pxelinux.cfg/C0
>>  	.../pxelinux.cfg/C
>>  	.../pxelinux.cfg/default
>>
>> The first are MAC addresses, etc.
>
> To be pedantic, the first one is a MAC address, the others are hex
> versions of IP addresses - i.e. 192.168.2.91 (the discovered DHCP IP
> address)

I understand all that.
>
>>  I want it to pull default. It takes
>> *minutes* to time out each option, so after a dozen or 15 min, when it
>> gets to defaul, tftp has timed it out.
>
> It shouldn't time out on trying to retrieve a file if the TFTP server
> is responding - each attempted retrieval should return a "not found"
> rather than sitting there doing nothing. Trying symlinking the MAC
> address filename to 'default' so it retrieves it first before any
> timeout could have happened.

You'd think. And as I said, this has been working for years, on three or
four OEM's hardware. Suddenly, there's this new box from Penguin that's
IBM-based, and it's using  something called "openether.org" firmware, and
it takes minutes between timeouts, instead of seconds. I'm talking to the
OEM, but trying to figure out what's going on. I haven't found a timeout
on the server side, though I suspect there is one, but I really *don't*
want to make it 20 min. I've also just been googling, trying to find out
if -mapfile for tftp will let me rename what it's looking for to
"default", but that search is going nowhere, fast.
>
> Also, you might like to try tcpdump to see what is actually happening
> on the TFTP port.

I'm under the impression I know - the client *tells* me what it's looking
for, in the order above, but it sits there, and sits there, before it
tries the next option.

       mark