kickstart install/ RHEL 4 update 2/ IBM Blade Center

[Marc M]

Hello,

I am setting up a kickstart installation on an IBM blade server with RHEL 4
update 2.  There is a management server with a web interface that allows me
to restart blades, etc.  The management server is also the DHCP server and
they are all on 192 addresses.  The repository is on the management server
and there is a /tftpboot directory.

I am still having trouble with the services somewhere.  When it boots up to
(blade 1 for example), I get messages saying that it is looking for
DHCP....then an ARP timeout.  It does display the MAC address so the client
and server do connect.  I am pretty sure the PXE part is set up right as
well.

I am not sure how to make ARP and/or TFTP not time out.  Is TFTP too wimpy
to use for this?  Should I be using ftp or http instead?  I have tried via
http and also via ftp and both times they have failed because I don't quite
get it to find the right information.

Someone else set up the NFS mount and suppossedly that is working.  I have
tried starting and stopping various services when it connects, since it
fails consistently anyway.  I don't know a lick about NFS, so I don't know
how to check it or anything.  I didn't change anything to do with NFS so it
should still be working.

Apparrently the system is set to use a /var/www/html/blade.cfg file rather
than a ks.cfg file.  I am very sure the file entries are ok, since I have
looked at it a thousand times.

1.  I am not too familiar with arp; basically I know that there is arp and
reverse arp and one of them has to do with getting ip addresses from known
hostnames and the other deals with the oppossite.  I have seen the arp -a
command but I am not really sure what that does.

2.  When I go into the GNOME desktop under something like System Tools ->
whatever -> 'Network Boot', and I click on a blade (1 for example) - I get a
box that is pointing to the (correct) ip address/blade.cfg.  Before you tell
me to change it to /var/www/html/blade.cfg, I can tell you that the installs
die regardless of what is in that gui box.  Hence the suspicion of some sort
of network services interfering.

3.  Can anyone just tell me any services that I absolutely MUST have running
and of course any that are definitely a problem?  That alone would be a
great place to continue from.

Thanks in advance

Marc
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