Bug 653986

Summary: netboot fails with new initrd (merged initrd+install.img)
Product: [Fedora] Fedora Reporter: Martin Banas <mbanas>
Component: anacondaAssignee: Anaconda Maintenance Team <anaconda-maint-list>
Status: CLOSED WONTFIX QA Contact: Fedora Extras Quality Assurance <extras-qa>
Severity: medium Docs Contact:
Priority: low    
Version: rawhideCC: anaconda-maint-list, jcm, jlaska, jonathan, karsten, vanmeeuwen+fedora
Target Milestone: ---   
Target Release: ---   
Hardware: ppc64   
OS: Linux   
Whiteboard:
Fixed In Version: Doc Type: Bug Fix
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Clone Of: Environment:
Last Closed: 2010-11-17 21:34:11 UTC Type: ---
Regression: --- Mount Type: ---
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oVirt Team: --- RHEL 7.3 requirements from Atomic Host:
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Description Martin Banas 2010-11-16 15:14:35 UTC 
Description of problem:
There are some limitations on power6 and power7 systems which prevents netbooting large initrd. The current PPC firmware supports downloading <32MB files. If the file is bigger, boot process fails (see the attached log for more information). Since there's about 130MB initrd in Fedora 15, netboot is not possible.
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Anaconda/Features/UnifiedInitrd

Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable):
Fedora 15

How reproducible:
always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Start netboot installation of Fedora 15 on ppc.
2. watch if the ramdisk.image.gz is downloaded properly.
3.
  
Actual results:
.....
( 1  ) Filename.................\tmp\ramdisk.image.gz
TFTP Retries..................5 
Block Size....................512 
1 CKET COUNT = 65500 
2 CKET COUNT = 65500 
PACKET COUNT = 65500 

Expected results:
Ramdisk should be downloaded without problems.

Additional info:
The problem is probably also on Fedora 14, where the initrd is very close to 32MB in size.

If the tftp limit is erased, there still may be a problem netbooting large images. From what I found out, booting more than 65MB initrd even from HDD with real-base=c00000 is not possible on power6 systems. It would be nice to know the limit on power7 systems.
Comment 2 Chris Lumens 2010-11-17 21:34:11 UTC 
ppc is not a primary architecture for Fedora anymore, so I don't really want to have the good progress we're making everywhere else held hostage to outdated tftp implementations.