FreeBSD-6.2, 7.0-BETA1 on X60

[Jeremy Chadwick]

On Mon, Dec 03, 2007 at 09:31:55PM +0800, Balgansuren Batsukh wrote:
> Hello All,
>
> I tried to install FreeBSD on X60 using PXE boot, but unsuccessfully finish 
> my attempt.
>
> When it start PXE boot it get IP address from DHCP, download PXE boot file 
> from TFTP server,
> then trying to load kernel image from TFTP server.
>
> After 10-20 minutes it give me error message "can't load kernel", I tried 
> many times load boot/kernel/kernel, but same result.
>
> I guess PXE boot read much longer time to load kernel file and suddenly 
> give me error message.
>
> I followed instruction on http://www.hack.org/mc/freebsd-x60.html
>
> I made X60---->LAN switch---->TFTP/DHCP/NFS server and even tried
> X60---cross-over cable---->TFTP/DHCP/NFS server.
>
> Is there any suggestion?

First, there's a manpage for all this: diskless(8).

I've tried this before myself (on all sorts of different hardware), and
I've never gotten it to work on RELENG_6 or RELENG_7 -- I reach the same
point and receive the same error you do.

It appears to me that that an NFS server is *absolutely* necessary for
all of this to work; TFTP by itself doesn't suffice, it appears.

I've tried setting LOADER_TFTP_SUPPORT=yes in make.conf (forcing the
entire process to avoid using NFS), but believe it or not, a part of the
booting process still continues to use NFS-related code (or at least the
debugging messages state it's trying to do NFS).  I was able to get some
pxeboot-related debugging output (to see the aforementioned) by setting
PXE_DEBUG=true in make.conf (see src/sys/boot/i386/libi386/pxe.c for
details on that).

-- 
| Jeremy Chadwick                                    jdc at parodius.com |
| Parodius Networking                           http://www.parodius.com/ |
| UNIX Systems Administrator                      Mountain View, CA, USA |
| Making life hard for others since 1977.                  PGP: 4BD6C0CB |