Problem specifying installation server (and DHCP)

W. Borgert debacle at debian.org
Tue Nov 4 20:16:50 CET 2003


Hello,

I cannot run my own DHCP server (not allowed by company admin policy),
but the client should get it's IP configuration from our existing DHCP
server during installation.  This works with the following kernel boot
parameters:

root=/dev/nfs nfsroot=192.168.0.1:/usr/lib/fai/nfsroot
ip=::::::off FAI_FLAGS=verbose,createvt

Unfortunately, I assume that FAI does not know it's server now:

SERVER not defined. Can't change network boot configuration
..
rcmd: getaddrinfo: Name or service not known
rcmd: getaddrinfo: Name or service not known

If I change the kernel boot parameters to include the server
(ip=:192.168.0.1:::::off), DHCP does not work:

..
IP Protocols: ICMP, UDP, TCP, IGMP
IP: routing cash hash table of 1048 buckets, 16Kbytes
TCP: Hash tables configured (established 16384 bind 16384)
Sending DHCP requests ...... timed out!
IP-Config: Retrying forever (NFS root)...
Sending DHCP requests ...... timed out!
IP-Config: Retrying forever (NFS root)...

and again and again...

If I boot the same machine with Knoppix (uses pump as DHCP client)
there is no problem, so I assume our DHCP server is OK.  I have other
machines using dhcp3-client, also without problems.

I'm using the fai 2.5.1 and fai-kernels 1.5.3 on sarge.  What is the
correct setup?  How can I tell the kernel it's FAI server without
killing DHCP?  Thanks in advance for any help!

Cheers,
W. Borgert



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