From owner-freebsd-net@FreeBSD.ORG Thu Apr 5 05:07:56 2012 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-net@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id F2D5C106564A for ; Thu, 5 Apr 2012 05:07:55 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from zbeeble@gmail.com) Received: from mail-bk0-f54.google.com (mail-bk0-f54.google.com [209.85.214.54]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 40F5E8FC0A for ; Thu, 5 Apr 2012 05:07:55 +0000 (UTC) Received: by bkcjc3 with SMTP id jc3so1210438bkc.13 for ; Wed, 04 Apr 2012 22:07:54 -0700 (PDT) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gmail.com; s=20120113; h=mime-version:in-reply-to:references:date:message-id:subject:from:to :content-type:content-transfer-encoding; bh=poQFd2HN1JgXgnxT4z3G6c5gM5V63CAl9iFHzXlftJo=; b=Gz9Tnbl7SGRvNhdLDykkg+ZsCdf2l1WIsdbxZhqribYHK477hMc1q8G8SKlF+w8dES oWztaTJQs1HTOuKFRBq4sgsXtHjVKdEKIoqZbUb1AqQwa3P/K2vz+QbMuCJq10nWgKI8 8QAiXl4GuMdkzRCvLb4nO/AVFzAFnqvK7aa+XjX2ZxbY8hTEdlpSlqUaF7Scs+jOdN7l AlW7oVi6ikdnFZpDmRNuFZN4VZCrOEyZYbBGUpYeGJHabg5FtsgmDtf5pwtrAR+d85mv V6LUzREcvU93aboOs/vs7wJN/9CHDNVpTEpmAt56zj0lMkCbYaqROYP0vQz1Xyys1fQD TZrA== MIME-Version: 1.0 Received: by 10.204.9.194 with SMTP id m2mr447926bkm.92.1333602474367; Wed, 04 Apr 2012 22:07:54 -0700 (PDT) Received: by 10.204.69.195 with HTTP; Wed, 4 Apr 2012 22:07:54 -0700 (PDT) In-Reply-To: References: Date: Thu, 5 Apr 2012 01:07:54 -0400 Message-ID: From: Zaphod Beeblebrox To: FreeBSD Net Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Subject: Re: PXE Boot vmware 8.x fails after pxeboot. X-BeenThere: freebsd-net@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Networking and TCP/IP with FreeBSD List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Thu, 05 Apr 2012 05:07:56 -0000 Replying to my own message again, I tried booting the same configuration on the raw computer hardware (as opposed to vmware). On the raw computer hardware, pxeboot correctly loads a kernel and boots it. This seems to imply that pxeboot and vmware 8.x don't play well together. On Tue, Apr 3, 2012 at 1:27 AM, Zaphod Beeblebrox wrote= : > Replying to my own message, I add more below... > > On Sun, Apr 1, 2012 at 8:44 PM, Zaphod Beeblebrox wro= te: >> I have had diskless FreeBSD machines before. =A0I started this project >> with an eye to booting iscsi disks, but there seems to be no way to >> communicate the root disk path (and parameters) to FreeBSD --- >> something that might be solvable, but I need practical at the moment. >> So I fall back on NFS diskless with PXE boot (I may have used >> etherboot in the past --- it's been awhile). >> >> Anyways... this attempt is made with FreeBSD-9.0-RELEASE binaries. >> >> In my network, 192.168.0.1 is the DHCP and TFTP server. =A0192.168.0.52 >> is my NFS server. =A0The new vmware guest is bridged and gets >> 192.168.0.135. =A0It successfully gets 'pxeboot' onto the vmware guest >> --- pxeboot prints it's banner. =A0Then the only network traffic I >> observe is DHCP Discover (vmware, presumably the pxeboot binary) >> followed by DHCP Offer (192.168.0.1 again) and this repeats. >> >> Now the dhcp offer gives a root path of >> "192.168.0.52:/vr/diskless/hit" ... and I've tried it with and without >> a trailing slash. >> >> Obviously this is something within the pxeboot's binary as no attempt >> to make the nfs mount occurs. > > ... With a few more variations of this test, I came across a > configuration where the pxeboot client loaded into the vmware system > would continue to spam the "options next-server" host to mount "/" ... > interestingly here, it seems to completely ignore "options root-path" > ... both the ip address and the path portions alike. > > ... but said behavior only occurs with some set of random > configuration changes on the returned DHCP packets and/or slightly > different versions of pxeboot (which I've pulled from various hosts > from 8.x through the 9.x that I'm trying to boot with. > > It strikes me that the pxeboot process is hanging somewhere ... or > overwriting memory ... or somesuch ... on this box. > > Has anyone seen or investigated this type of behavior?