Date: Mon, 05 Feb 2001 20:46:44 -0800 (PST) From: John Baldwin <jhb@FreeBSD.org> To: Soren Kristensen <soren@soekris.com> Cc: freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.org Subject: RE: Help with PXE boot, install and related... Message-ID: <XFMail.010205204644.jhb@FreeBSD.org> In-Reply-To: <3A7F787A.22139C21@soekris.com>
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On 06-Feb-01 Soren Kristensen wrote: > Hi everybody, > > First, let me start with saying that I'm not really a unix > hacker, but a hardware designer having a little trouble.... > > All my questions are related to my hardware development > project, an AMD SC520 based minimum network appliance, for > details, see http://www.soekris.com/net4501.html > > > 1) I cannot boot FreeBSD using a PXE boot ROM from a FreeBSD > server. Even worse, if I set up my Win98 box with a tftp > server, I can boot succesfully from that !! > > The pxeboot gets loaded, grab the correct info from the dhcp > server, but can then not download anything more, the server > logs say "server tftpd[xxxx]: read: Connection refused" > I have updated my boot loader sources to -Stable and have > tried both the NFS and TFTP modes. The FreeBSD server doing > dhcp and nfs/tftp is running 3.1-Release. > The PXE rom is an oem from bootix. I more or less used the > instructions from http://people.freebsd.org/~alfred/pxe/ > > Any ideas ? Sounds like you may not have tftpd setup correctly on the FreeBSD server. Then again, it did fetch the pxeboot image. Hmmm. What file is it reading when it dies? Does it say? > 2) Using the Win98 tftp server, everything works fine, it > downloads the standard install images, and proceed with a > standard install of FreeBSD 4.1-Release. (what I happen to > have around....) > > But my next problem is space. Even when using a 48 Mbyte > CompactFlash, a minimum install doesn't fit. You'll probably want to roll your own release that only has the binaries that you need for your application on it. There are others on this list who have done embedded stuff that are better experts in this area than I though, so I'll defer to them. Also, there is a freebsd-small list where most of the embedded types hang out. Not all of them just stick picoBSD on a floppy, many use compact flash as their storage medium. > 3) A general request.... The standard FreeBSD install > process don't seem to be very headless friendly (My hardware > IS minimal...) Could the developer please try to improve on > that ? You can do an install over serial console. We have code that can probe for a keyboard on boot and fail over to a serial console if a keyboard is present, but some newer BIOS's (notably many K7 motherboards) are broken and we don't detect a keyboard even when there is one present, resulting in people trying to do a normal install and not getting any screen output, so it is off by default. There are two ways that you can set this up. The first is to edit the boot/loader.rc that loads the kernel and add this line: set console=comconsole This will give you a serial console on COM1 @ 9600 for the installation. Secondly, you can rebuild pxeboot with an extra make option defined: make -DBOOT_PXELDR_PROBE_KEYBOARD > T.ex, the boot sectors hangs when there's no keyboard > controller, the pxeboot is using VGA as default (I had to > hardcode it to use serial console), the standard install > program graphics is awfull when using a VT100 terminal, and > finally, a standard install leaves the system as VGA only, > even when installed using a serial console.... When you install over a serial console, you can choose an appropriate termcap to use for your local terminal. If you are installing from a console on another FreeBSD box you can choose the color console, for example, and it will look like an install over VGA. The last one is something that could use some work. > 4) And last, for anybody still with me :-) I moved a > harddisk with FreeBSD 4.1 from another computer to my test > hardware after updating is with a custom kernel and serial > console config files. After doing some testing and kernel > compiles, I wanted to move it back to speed things up. > > But now it refuses to boot on the original computer. I boot > ok until the login promt, I can even ping it before the > promt, then hangs without error messages. Both have the same > network hardware. Umm, this is really weird. Can you plug a keyboard in and boot it and see if numlock works at least (just see if the LED changes) to see if interrupts are workign at all? -- John Baldwin <jhb@FreeBSD.org> -- http://www.FreeBSD.org/~jhb/ PGP Key: http://www.baldwin.cx/~john/pgpkey.asc "Power Users Use the Power to Serve!" - http://www.FreeBSD.org/ To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-hackers" in the body of the message
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