From Bugzilla Helper: User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-GB; rv:1.7.6) Gecko/20050321 Firefox/1.0.2 Description of problem: When attempting netinstall with FC3 install cd, the installer is not at all helpful about mirror sites. If certain leading/trailing slashes are omitted or included, the installer will not find the mirror and report an error. There is no guidance on the correct format of a URL. The HTTP install has a bug that has been reported (#101265) which adds a leading /, making netinstall very difficult from HTTP mirrors. The FTP install seems to expect a leading / and no trailing / in the directory name. A good resolution to this would be to have a "URL" box rather than two "hostname" / "directory" boxes, and ideally not split up netinstall into FTP and HTTP. For example: Have Netinstall as install option. This option sets up your network as before then brings up a "Enter mirror URL" box with an example underneath (the standard fedora.redhat.com HTTP site for example) Ideally, a list of mirrors obtained from the main site would be displayed to choose from. Even more ideally, the sites would be sortable by geographic location / response time in milliseconds. Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable): How reproducible: Always Steps to Reproduce: 1. Boot from CD created from boot iso. 2. Run linux askmethod 3. Choose FTP install 4. Enter ftp.mirror.ac.uk in first box 5. Enter mirror/fedora.redhat.com/3/i386/os in second box 6. Continue Actual Results: FTP mirror could not be found Expected Results: FTP mirror should be found Additional info: Can fix by adding leading / to mirror/fedora.redhat.com/... Other permutations of /'s give same problem. Worse with HTTP in FC3 due to bug #101265.
The fact that it puts a double "//" at the start of the path was really troublesome. It did it no matter whether or not I started the path with a "/". Unlike Apache, the Web server I was using made any URL with "//" lead to a 404 instead of ignoring the second "/". Accepting a whole URL instead of a HOST and a PATH would also be beneficial because you could choose a different port. Initially, my Web server was running on port 8000, not port 80. (Unfortunately, when I switched the server to listen to port 80, I forgot to open up a hole in the firewall, but that was my own mistake.)
Fedora Core 3 is now maintained by the Fedora Legacy project for security updates only. If this problem is a security issue, please reopen and reassign to the Fedora Legacy product. If it is not a security issue and hasn't been resolved in the current FC5 updates or in the FC6 test release, reopen and change the version to match. Thank you!
Same issues as comment #1. No matter how the url wes formatted, it added "//" between the host and the path. Bug now present in FC6 final,
(In reply to comment #3) > Same issues as comment #1. No matter how the url wes formatted, it added "//" > between the host and the path. Bug now present in FC6 final, I am getting a similar thing in Fedora Core 6. Basically I am trying to install onto a CD/DVD-less laptop by booting off a USB key. I get to the point where it is asking the install method so I select FTP or HTTP (happens in both cases). I enter the following: FTP site name: 192.168.0.6 FC Directory: /fedora/6/core/rescue/ each time I get an error: Unable to retrieve ftp://192.168.0.6//fedora/6/core/rescue/images/stage2.img This happens exactly the same for HTTP installs. I don't want to install over the internet, and I don't have a DNS server in place that will translate IP addresses to FQDNs. This does not happen when I am using FQDNs, e.g. ftp.heanet.ie, /pub/fedora/linux/core/6/os/ Can someone check this out as it is extremely annoying! Thanks, Andrew
requested by Jams Antill
See also {bug 207278} and {bug 237548}.
I believe this problem exists in Fedora 8 as well. I am using (would like to) PXE boot to load and configure systems and I have been working through the issues and I have come to the point where the installation media hosted on a local http server is called via the "append" line in the boot configuration file: method=http:\\192.168.0.5\fedora\f8 at the point it is to start downloading the media, is fails with the error: cannot find media http:\\192.168.0.5\\fedora\f8\images\... if you press OK the dialog box shows the server and path in separate fill-in boxes. However, no matter what I put in those boxes, an extra / is inserted and the error repeats. I have tried different combinations of " and extra slashs. none seem to work.
Sorry my windows fingers were typing... that should have been: http://192.168.0.5/fedora/f8
Please try with rawhide or F9 alpha, which is coming up alarmingly soon. I have reworked the URL method dialog to present just a single line for both the server and the path. If you are still seeing problems with the path, please attach relevant sections from your web server logs so I can work on tracking them down. Thanks.
I tried the rawhide vmlinuz0 and initrd0.img files and this caused a far different problem. after the two files are unpacked many lines scroll by and disk drives are scanned and the message: _____________________________________ WARNING: Cannot find root file system! _____________________________________ Create symlink /dev/root and then exit this shell to continue the boot sequence. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ My setup: tftp server installed and enabled. firewall ports 67 and 69 UDP opened dhcpd settings: ddns-update-style interim; subnet 192.168.0.0 netmask 255.255.255.0 { range 192.168.0.50 192.168.0.100; default-lease-time 3600; max-lease-time 4800; option routers 192.168.0.1; option domain-name-servers 192.168.0.1; option subnet-mask 255.255.255.0; option domain-name "7bridgeshome.org"; option time-offset -5; } host bridges1 { hardware ethernet 00:02:B3:06:C3:64; fixed-address 192.168.0.101; option host-name "bridges1"; filename "pxelinux.0"; } the root tftp directory is /TFTPBOOT the directory listing: drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 4096 2008-01-08 19:15 . drwxr-xr-x 24 root root 4096 2008-01-08 19:09 .. -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 6587351 2008-01-05 18:31 initrd-f8.img -rw-rw-r-- 1 root root 4113900 2008-01-08 18:55 initrd-rawhide.img -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 13408 2007-10-17 11:55 pxelinux.0 drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 2008-01-08 19:16 pxelinux.cfg -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1978624 2008-01-05 18:31 vmlinuz-f8 -rw-rw-r-- 1 root root 2105152 2008-01-08 19:11 vmlinuz-rawhide the directory listing of pxelinux.cfg is: drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 2008-01-08 19:16 . drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 4096 2008-01-08 19:15 .. -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 362 2008-01-08 19:16 default the contents of the file default: prompt 1 default f8 timeout 100 label f8 kernel vmlinuz-rawhide append initrd=initrd-rawhide.img ramdisk_size=9216 noapic acpi=off ip=dhcp method=http://192.168.0.5//fedora/f8 vnc vncpassword=f8 The only new files I used were vmlinuz0 and initrd0.img both renamed to match my "plan". MD5sums: 6224b49eb5a6e7613e758125515f1643 initrd-rawhide.img d041acbb821dc1fc5bf90750fa0cec39 vmlinuz-rawhide In case you read the pxelinux help guides... you will notice that they all say that you need a group of files: C C0 C0A C0A8 ... You do not. The system scans for eac file from the most specific (mac address, IP address and then more generic mac addresses (in hex) and if it does not find any of those it looks for the file default.
I would really like this problem resolved, since I am not a coder, I do not know how I can help. Is there anything I can do? Do you need more information on the problem? Can I help you test anything? Do you need help documenting anything? thanks. (there is an extra / in the update above.. it should be: http://192.168.0.5/fedora/f8 ) Thanks.
(In reply to comment #10) > I tried the rawhide vmlinuz0 and initrd0.img files and this caused a far > different problem. > > after the two files are unpacked many lines scroll by and disk drives are > scanned and the message: David H: That would appear to be a different issue than originally reported. Would you like to retest netboot with F9-alpha {or current rawhide} pxeboot bits ? If you still see the same errors {ie as in comment 10}, then create a new bug with those errors. ps. could it be running out of ramdisk_size=9216 ?
Created attachment 294654 [details] screenshot of vmware session during install (In reply to comment #9) > Please try with rawhide or F9 alpha, which is coming up alarmingly soon. > I have reworked the URL method dialog to present just a single line for > both the server and the path. OK. Booted boot.iso. The text mode installer has just a URL method {rather than the previous ftp and http methods}. Entering a url eg: ftp://d.f.redhat.com/ to the F9-Alpha os folder works OK. Second stage loads. Package choice loads. {unselect the three parts - for a smaller DL/install} Installation begins. Install is taking a long time. VT shows that occasionally download URLs are failing. The system seems to wait some minutes, then try again - mostly this succeeds. Note that the echoed Failed URLs are of the form: WARNING : Try 3/10 for ftp://download.fedora.redhat.com//pub/fedora/linux/ .. releases/test/9-Alpha/Fedora/i386/os/Packages/finger-0.17-35.fc8.i386.rpm faile which does have an additional / between the host and the top dir, at least in the error message. see attach.
I would say that the originally reported problem and solution {to allow URL's} works for at least ftp protocol.
Created attachment 294657 [details] wireshark-follow tcp stream for ftp control connection. note that the first attempted {and successful on the redhat ftp server} is to "." Perhaps that is a problem on certain types/config of ftp servers ?
I ran one test before I had to get to work this morning. I added the new vmlinuz and initrd.img file and retried my test. It got to the point of the original problem (that is a good thing). In the message stating it could not find the media (which it was pointing to fedora 8 not f9 alpha) it showed http://192.168.0.5//fedora/f8 as the attempted location. When I pressed the key to continue it showed http://192.168.0.5/fedora/f8 in the UNC fill-in space for the media. When I pressed enter to accept this location, the message showed the UNC path as: http://192.168.0.5//fedora/f8 When I get home tonight I will fix the path so it points to the correct media location for fedora 9 alpha and see if it continue the install.
I fixed the path to the files and it now works as expected. The message above is still accurate. If you have an invalid path to the distribution, it shows the two / marks between the host and the path. BUT IT WORKS Properly... Thank you!!!
We do a better job on the ftp and url installs. This should be taken care of in rawhide.