Replacing KLIBCs ipconfig with UDHCPC inside live initramfs tools

[Stephan Adig]

Guten Morgen Michael,

On Sun, 2011-01-16 at 00:45 +0100, Michael Prokop wrote:
> * Stephan Adig <sh at sourcecode.de> [Tue Jan 11, 2011 at 01:07:25PM +0100]:
> 
> [...]
> 
> > And then came the problem...strangely klibcs ipconfig wasn't able to
> > reliable do dhcp requests inside the initramfs.
> > As the first PXE DHCP/BOOTP request was working and we are using the
> > BOOTIF parameter of pxelinux to catch exactly that interface, we were
> > sure that our DHCP infrastructure is working (we are doing some dhcp
> > relay configs inside our network).
> 
> [...]
> 
> > I'm thinking, that udhcpc is a better solution for dhcp requests inside
> > (live) initramfs and we should try to go that way.
> 
> > I don't know what it needs to start the discussion with initramfs
> > upstream (or the linux plumbers) but we could also create a separate fai
> > initramfs overlay (just like the live one).
> 
> > What do you think?
> 
> The udhcpc solution is definitely interesting. With my
> initramfs-tools co-maintainer hat on and as discussed on IRC already
> it would be great if you could provide a patch against
> initramfs-tools.

I will...when I'm awake next week ;) As said, we are redeploying our
complete DC with DC² / FAI / Puppet to Ubuntu Lucid...and I'm already on
36 hours without sleep.


> 
> And it would be great if you could file a bug against klibc-utils's
> ipconfig as well (and if it's just that other people are aware of
> this issue or if we need it for argumenting why udhcpc might be
> necessary at all).

Trying.


> 
> The udhcpc fix is not an option for squeeze at this time anymore, as
> you might be well aware of. And the initramfs overlay shouldn't be
> our prefered way to integrate this feature, instead let's try to
> come up with a clean solution that can be integrated in mainline
> initramfs-tools. If that's really not an option at all we can still
> think about a special overlay.

No, not for squeeze..and I'm wondering if Ubuntu will take the patch as
well...but to overcome the problems with a buggy klibc ipconfig tool
it's worth to try to push this change.

I mean, everything which replaces ipconfig is much better then
ipconfig...udhcpc is just something I knew about and which works here
right now very stable.

Regards,

\sh

-- 
Stephan '\sh' Hermann
SysAdmin / Ubuntu Developer
xmpp: sh at sourcecode.de