[K12OSN] Network boot hangs

Tue Feb 10 00:14:42 UTC 2009

I've seen this happen before, back when something was haywire with my 
client's NIC; it was one of those gradual failures.  Swapping NIC's did 
the trick then.  I've also (rarely) seen an NFS misconfig do it; this is 
rare because it's autoconfig'd during the K12LTSP setup.  I'm assuming 
here that you've left /etc/dhcpd.conf (or /etc/dhcpd-k12ltsp.conf) at 
its stock config.

Can you try this:  boot a thick client Linux box, try mounting 
/opt/ltsp/i386 from the LTSP server, and copying everything under there 
to a test directory on the thick client?

Also, do you have another kind of thin client to try out to see if it 
happens there, too?

--TP
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Peter Trifonov wrote:
> Rob, thanks a lot for the suggestion. I have tried gPXE, but with the same
> result. 
> The problem arises AFTER Linux kernel is downloaded from the server and
> started. 
> The kernel says:
>
> ...
> Creating new ramdisk to hold our new rootfs
> Mounting root filesystem: ... from xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx [Some NFS traffic is
> observed at the server at this moment]
> Setting up the new root ramdisk area
> Doing the switchroot
> SwitchRoot v0.1 - Copyright 2005 Linux based systems design
> Freeing ram used by initramfs
>
>
> After this the system stops doing anything.
>
>
> With best regards,
> P. Trifonov
>
>
>   
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: k12osn-bounces at redhat.com [mailto:k12osn-bounces at redhat.com] On
>> Behalf Of Rob Owens
>> Sent: Monday, February 09, 2009 6:21 PM
>> To: Support list for open source software in schools.
>> Subject: Re: [K12OSN] Network boot hangs
>>
>> I had a similar problem and found that some clients would not boot with
>> an etherboot cd, but they would boot with a gPXE cd.  Try that.  You
>> can get it from www.rom-o-matic.net.  When it comes to the driver
>> selection part, choose gpxe from the drop-down list.
>>
>> -Rob
>>
>> On Mon, Feb 09, 2009 at 10:54:44AM +0300, Peter Trifonov wrote:
>>     
>>> Hello,
>>>
>>> I have installed K12LTSP 5-EL/32 bit onto a server in my network. It
>>>       
>> works
>>     
>>> fine with relatively modern client PCs.
>>> However, booting 12-year old HP Vectra PCs (Pentium-200 CPU, 96 MB
>>>       
>> RAM)
>>     
>>> hangs with the words "Freeing ram used by initramfs".
>>> The system is not really frozen, but nothing happens.  I have a few
>>>       
>> such
>>     
>>> PCs, and all of them exhibit such behavior. I have observed some NFS
>>>       
>> traffic
>>     
>>> between the server and the client before it hangs.
>>>
>>> Does anyone have any suggestions what can be wrong with the clients?
>>>       
>
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>   
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