Bug 15896

Summary:	RFE:pump in 'loader' should increase dhcp timeout
Product:	[Retired] Red Hat Linux	Reporter:	bruno
Component:	anaconda	Assignee:	Erik Troan <ewt>
Status:	CLOSED WONTFIX	QA Contact:
Severity:	medium	Docs Contact:
Priority:	low
Version:	6.2	CC:	c.m.western
Target Milestone:	---	Keywords:	FutureFeature
Target Release:	---
Hardware:	i386
OS:	Linux
Whiteboard:
Fixed In Version:		Doc Type:	Enhancement
Doc Text:		Story Points:	---
Clone Of:		Environment:
Last Closed:	2001-09-14 18:27:02 UTC	Type:	---
Regression:	---	Mount Type:	---
Documentation:	---	CRM:
Verified Versions:		Category:	---
oVirt Team:	---	RHEL 7.3 requirements from Atomic Host:
Cloudforms Team:	---	Target Upstream Version:
Embargoed:

Description bruno 2000-08-09 23:39:03 UTC

when i try to kickstart a compaq 1850r (which has the tlan ethernet chip),
the dhcp request
issued from 'loader' times out.

the problem is the tlan driver takes ~40 seconds to initialize -- the pump
dhcp request
times out much earlier. i hacked the loader code and increased the timeout
which fixed
the problem.

since kickstart is installing a system, i don't see any danger in setting
large timeouts (e.g.,
on the order of 2 or 3 minutes). as a sanity check, the dhcp client from
ISC defaults it's
timeout to 60 seconds (and it's configurable).

i'd like to see this change make it's way back into the red hat loader
source code.

Comment 1 c.m.western 2000-09-08 18:19:08 UTC

I have the same problem (and request), though I am not sure exactly where the fault lies.
When using the 3c59xdriver which reports the following:
3c59x.c:v0.99H 27May00 Donald Becker http://cesdis.gsfc.nasa.gov/linux/drivers/v
ortex.html
eth0: 3Com 3c905B Cyclone 100baseTx at 0xec00,  00:50:04:3d:58:26, IRQ 10
  8K byte-wide RAM 5:3 Rx:Tx split, autoselect/MII interface.
connected via a Cisco Catalyst 2900 Series XL switch it seems that the switch takes
about 45 seconds to recover (sense speed?) whenever the interface is initialised. To get dhcp
to work at all I had to make the following change:

*** dhcp.c      Tue Aug 22 18:38:55 2000
--- /t/ctcmw/pump-0.8.2/dhcp.c  Mon Aug  7 22:57:58 2000
***************
*** 1159,1166 ****
        return chptr;
      }

-     sleep(45);        /* wait for ethernet card to autosense speed etc */
-
      if ((chptr = prepareRequest(&breq, s, intf->device, startTime))) {
        close(s);
        pumpDisableInterface(intf->device);
--- 1159,1164 ----

This may actually be a problem with the card initialisation, as I have also noticed that there can be other problems
during a boot without dhcp, suggesting that the first packet through the interface is garbled. Note that it does 
have something to do with the switch, as the delay is not required if I connect two computers together directly.

Comment 2 Michael Fulbright 2001-09-14 18:26:57 UTC

This appears to be a very isolated problem and we have not received other
reports so it doesn't require any changes.