NFS kickstart fails with e1000.ko drivers

[Joe Robertson]

> -----Original Message-----
Jesse Keating wrote:
> 
> On Friday 07 May 2004 14:05, Joe Robertson wrote:
> > Question:
> > Has anyone has been successful in running kickstart via NFS through
> > an Intel 82546EB network interface?

...

> > The problem comes in when I try to use kickstart instead of 
> doing the 
> > interactive installs on a machine that uses the Intel 
> 82546EB Gigabit 
> > ethernet chipset.  When the installation gets to a point where it
> > needs to access NFS (for the kickstart file or for the installation)
> > at which time it reports that NFS
> > has failed and tries to load from CD (according to the 
> ALT-F3 screen)
> > then halts.  I have tried this on
> > several Dell 1600sc and a SuperMicro 6013P-T with the same results.
> 
> Is the module even able to load?  We've seen the newer e1000 chipset 
> boards require a newer driver from intel.com.  Check your other ttys, 
> to see if it even loads the e1000 driver.
> 

As far as I can tell, the driver loads just fine.  It is just too slow
(or anaconda is too impatient?).  The output on the console is as
follows:

	Intel(R) PRO/1000 Network Driver - version 5.2.30.1-k2 Copyright
(c)
	1999-2004 Intel Corporation.
	eth0: Intel(R) PRO/1000 Network Connection

If I do the installation interactively (using PXE / NFS), everything 
works and I have no problems with the network - only when I try to 
kickstart.  I also use NFS during the interactive installation and 
at other times as well - with no problems.


I have worked on isolating this by building a new initrd.img file (with
help thanks to Richard Black) that can run a bash script in place of
the binary /linuxrc that is in the initial file.  I tried loading the
e1000.ko file then adding a delay.  I got all of this working - as
evidenced
by output to the console.  However, anaconda ignores this and
reloads the e1000.ko file later - just before it declares an NFS
failure.


Cody Collier wrote:

>I have successfully used kickstart via http with this network interface

>using rhel 3.  It should work for rh 9 as well.  (I might have used 9,
but 
>I can't recall now.)  Depending on your pxe configuration there might
not 
>be much difference between this and an nfs source for the file.
>
>verification of an interface match:
>03:02.0 Ethernet controller: Intel Corp. 82546EB Gigabit Ethernet
Controller (Copper) (rev 01) 03:02.1 Ethernet controller: Intel Corp.
>82546EB Gigabit Ethernet Controller (Copper) (rev 01)>
>
>This requires that you use the images from:
>
>(yourdistribution)/images/pxeboot/ 
>
>This ramdisk contains all the drivers, including the e1000, rather than

>the smaller subset in the normal boot images.
>
>Can you pass on what images you are using, as well as what your netboot

>file looks like?  Are you specifying the ksdevice and other ks
parameters 
>in the append line in this file?
>
>cody

Cody - can you also provide a sample of what parameters you use for
ksdevice etc
	for your http setup?  I haven't set up an http server for this
yet but
	someone else told me he gave up on trying to use NFS and
switched to HTTP.

For my setup,
	I copy all of the files from all of the CDs (or from the mirror
/os directory) to
	/<my_nfshare> (I'll use /pxe/fc2-3 for this example)

	I copy the vmlinuz and initrd.img files from the
/pxe/fc2-3/images/pxeboot to
	/tftpboot/vmlinuz-fc2-3 and /tftpboot/initrd-fc2-3.img (for
Fedora core 2 test 3).

	I created a directory and put the kickstart file there:
		/pxe/fc2-3/ks/ks-min.cfg

	The entries in the /tftpboot/pxelinux.cfg/default file are then
set according to
	the version I want to use for installations.  For example:

	LABEL fc2-3
		KERNEL vmlinuz-fc2-3
		APPEND ksdevice=eth0 console=tty0 load_ramdisk=1
initrd=initrd-fc2-3.img \
			network ip=dhcp
ks=nfs:10.0.124.21:/pxe/fc2-3/ks/ks-min.cfg

	The dhcpd.conf entry uses the MAC address of the NIC, it assigns
a hostname and
	ip address.

	The e1000.ko module is present in the /modules/modules/cgz file
so this is not
	an issue for this version (although it could still be a 'bad'
module -
	version 5.2.30.1-k2).
		

Joe Robertson


> -- 
> Jesse Keating RHCE      (geek.j2solutions.net)
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