pxeboot with IBM x335: failure

Roman Neuhauser neuhauser at chello.cz
Mon Mar 21 05:25:30 PST 2005


Hello,

I'm trying to boot an IMB x335 server via PXE.

I "succeeded" with 4.11: it booted up to a timeout in mpt (onboard LSI
SCSI) followed by a panic shortly after /stand/sysinstall starts and
prints "probing devices".

Since RHEL3 boots just fine from a disk attached to the very same
controller I wanted to give 5.x a try, and this is what I get from an
attempt to boot 5.3-RELEASE floppies with 5.3-p5 pxeboot compiled with
tftp support. Can anyone tell me what I'm doing wrong? I can provide
part numbers, exact BIOS versions, whatever is deemed relevant.

Transcribed from the console, I don't have serial console here:

BIOS drive A: is disk0
BIOS drive C: is disk1
PXE version 2.1, real mode entry point @9856:00d6
BIOS 554kB/523184kB available memory

FreeBSD/i386 bootstrap loader, Revision 1.1
(root at hans.zoom-int.cz, Mon Mar 21 ...)
pxe_open: server addr: 10.0.0.6
pxe_open: server path: /var/run/tftpboot/5.3-RELEASE
pxe_open: gateway ip: 10.0.0.1
Console: internal video/keyboard
BIOS drive A: is disk0
BIOS drive C: is disk1
BIOS 554kB/523184kB available memory

FreeBSD/i386 bootstrap loader, Revision 1.1
(root at hans.zoom-int.cz, Mon Mar 21 ...)
Can't work out which disk we are booting from.
Guessed BIOS device 0xffffffff not found by probes, defaulting to disk0:

can't load 'kernel'

Type '?' for...
OK

Also of interest, ls throws input/output error for "/" and lsdev reports
no pxe devices.

BTW, this is contents of the "root-path" directory:

root at edna run/tftpboot/5.3-RELEASE 1047:0 # pwd
/var/run/tftpboot/5.3-RELEASE
root at edna run/tftpboot/5.3-RELEASE 1048:0 # find . -type f | sort
./acpi.ko.gz
./boot/beastie.4th.gz
./boot/defaults/loader.conf.gz
./boot/device.hints.gz
./boot/frames.4th.gz
./boot/loader
./boot/loader.4th.gz
./boot/loader.conf
./boot/loader.help.gz
./boot/loader.rc
./boot/pxeboot
./boot/screen.4th.gz
./boot/support.4th.gz
./kernel.gz
./kernel.gz.aa
./kernel.gz.ab
./kernel.gz.boot
./kernel.gz.split
./mfsroot.gz
root at edna run/tftpboot/5.3-RELEASE 1049:0 # 

-- 
How many Vietnam vets does it take to screw in a light bulb?
You don't know, man.  You don't KNOW.
Cause you weren't THERE.             http://bash.org/?255991


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