DHCP and e1000

[mail at kwerner.net]

Hello,

thanks for your reply.

Yes I did. The server has two cards:
00:e0:81:72:04:bb and 00:e0:81:72:04:ba

I tried all possible combinations of active/plugged cards with no effect.

Besides, the DHCP server knows the card from its configuration:

host dualxeon {
  hardware ethernet 00:e0:81:72:04:bb;
  fixed-address 192.168.7.113;
}

and he recognizes its requests and he answers it:

Dec  9 13:36:31 faitest2 dhcpd: DHCPDISCOVER from 00:e0:81:72:04:bb via eth0
Dec  9 13:36:31 faitest2 dhcpd: DHCPOFFER on 192.168.7.113 to
00:e0:81:72:04:bb via eth0

but instead of mounting its NFSROOT, the client keeps sending requests,
there is nothing like this (from a succesfull mount):

Dec  9 18:48:59 amd1800 dhcpd: DHCPACK on 192.168.7.115 to
00:60:08:69:90:c4 via eth0

followed by:

Dec  9 18:48:59 amd1800 mountd[3170]: authenticated mount request from
amdk6.urandom.lan:930 for /srv/fai/nfsroot (/srv/fai/nfsro
ot)

I think the card somehow looses its connectivity in the process, because
the TFTPD also has problems connecting:

Dec  9 13:36:05 faitest2 atftpd[3502]: timeout: retrying...										<----
Dec  9 13:36:13 faitest2 last message repeated 4 times
Dec  9 13:36:15 faitest2 atftpd[3502]: Server thread exiting
Dec  9 13:36:15 faitest2 atftpd[3502]: timeout: retrying...										<----
Dec  9 13:36:25 faitest2 last message repeated 4 times
Dec  9 13:36:28 faitest2 atftpd[3502]: client (192.168.7.113) not
responding							<----
Dec  9 13:36:28 faitest2 atftpd[3502]: Server thread exiting
Dec  9 13:36:30 faitest2 atftpd[3502]: client (192.168.7.113) not
responding							<----
Dec  9 13:36:30 faitest2 atftpd[3502]: Server thread exiting

The question is: Why?

I repeat, the succesfull mount was accomplished using the same switch,
even the same cable. By now, I think this is an issue of broken
hardware. On the other hand, that is unlikely, because this system was
installed via PXE and TFTP a few weeks ago by my distributor, who is
also using Debian/sarge as install server.