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Date:      Mon, 24 Feb 2020 08:46:20 -0500
From:      Mark Saad <nonesuch@longcount.org>
To:        =?utf-8?Q?Domagoj_Smol=C4=8Di=C4=87?= <rank1seeker@gmail.com>
Cc:        hackers@freebsd.org
Subject:   Re: Slow PXE boot
Message-ID:  <8F7B8958-5295-4A26-82E9-94C7A62ED8A1@longcount.org>
In-Reply-To: <20200224032300.00006290@gmail.com>
References:  <20200224032300.00006290@gmail.com>

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Domagoj=20
   I regularly boot 11.3-Stable and 12.1-Stable amd64 on servers with 64gb, 1=
28gb , and occasional more . I do t have that issue . Can you take a peak at=
 the switch your boxes are attached to ; It sounds like a device is running a=
t 100mb 1/2 duplex . I remember the realtec nics doing this when set to auto=
 .=20

---
Mark Saad | nonesuch@longcount.org

> On Feb 23, 2020, at 9:23 PM, Domagoj Smol=C4=8Di=C4=87 <rank1seeker@gmail.=
com> wrote:
>=20
> =EF=BB=BFYo Crew!
>=20
> During PXE boot, from server (11.3-RELEASE-p5 i386) with 1 GB RAM, client w=
ith:
>    4 GB RAM booted kernel in  ~2 min
>    8 GB RAM booted kernel in ~20 min (at least)
> So all below is tested with 2 different clients, each with NIC of differen=
t manufacturer (Realtec & Intel)
>=20
> I've read on forums that if client has much, much more RAM than server, th=
is happens.
> Suggestion was to to set loader(8) tunable hw.memtest.tests to 0, so clien=
t would skip RAM test.
>=20
> PXE boot is served to clients from /PXE, so ...
> Setting hw.memtest.tests=3D"0" in /PXE/boot/loader.conf, yielded no result=
s!
>=20
> By the way, for some reason, hw.memtest.tests tunable DOESN'T exist in man=
 pages!
> I had to look in source code to confirm it still exists.
>=20
>=20
> Next, I've tried:
> # echo 'nfs.read_size=3D"16384"' > /PXE/boot/loader.conf
>    Changing value to ANY value other than default 1024, completely halts c=
lient's kernel loading at 'Loading kernel...'!
>=20
>=20
> Lastly, I've tried tactic used with UFS's stage 2 /boot/boot, to skip stag=
e 3 loader completely and to directly load kernel instead.
> So in dhcpd.conf, I've replaced:
>    filename "boot/pxeboot";
> with:
>    filename "boot/kernel/kernel";
>=20
> Result:
>    Attempt to pull GENERIC kernel directly, resulted in: "NBP is too big t=
o fit in free base memory"
> Maybe I should try to compile custom minimal kernel 'ident PXE' ...
> It is unbelievable how many problems do I have ...
>=20
>=20
>=20
> Domagoj Smol=C4=8Di=C4=87
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> https://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-hackers
> To unsubscribe, send any mail to "freebsd-hackers-unsubscribe@freebsd.org"=




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