Description of problem: Having just downloaded the 3 ISOs of shrike I did the usual thing of putting shrike-i386-disc1.iso/images/pxeboot/{vmlinux,initrd.img} into a TFTP server along with a config file in pxelinux.cfm and setting up the DHCP server. This all worked as I would expect and the installer started up. I (err, obviously) wanted to do a network install so in the installed I selected: Language: English Keyboard: UK Method: NFS Network Device: eth0 (as this box has two network interfaces) At this point I expected to be asked whether to use DHCP or to enter some parameters for the interface. I wasn't. The next screen I see is the 'NFS setup' dialog where I am asked for the NFS server & Red Hat directory. If I enter valid values into there (either IP address or hostname for the server) I *always* get the result "That directory could not be mounted from the server". Looking further into this problem I studied the messages on virtual terminal 4. I can see that the kernel detects both the network interfaces correctly, giving the on-motherboard interface eth0 - which is good 'cause that's where the network needs to be for the pxelinux.0 boot. But close to the end of the messages it says: * using interface eth0 * doing kickstart... setting up * result of pumpSetupInterface is SIOCSIFNETMASK: Cannot assign requested address * reverse name lookup failed * going to do nfsGetSetup * mounting nfs path 192.168.0.2:/share/filestore/software/i386/linux/RedHat/v9.0 So. I decided to snort my network to see if I could see any DHCP requests from the client while it was initialising the network interface. I saw no requests. I can only imagine that something is going wrong with the installer and its not setting up the network interface. Currently I cannot see how to get round this problem, except by throwing extra hardware at the client box. But if that's the solution then its a major step back from previous versions of RedHat Linux.
What is your kernel command line?
I can't see the exact kernel command line as it wizzes past too quickly but the pxelinux.cfg file I am using includes the following, I hope this includes enough info for you. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- default text prompt 1 timeout 600 label text kernel /rh9.0/vmlinuz append initrd=/rh9.0/initrd.img lang= text devfs=nomount ramdisk_size=8192 nofb ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sorry about the line break in the 'append' line above - the nofb *is* in the same line as the append command.
Looking at the output here, it looks like the command line includes an ip= that's incorrect. Could you try adding 'ip=dhcp' to your append line?
Excuse my stupidity; of cause I should have used the scroll back buffer. Anyway, I added ip=dhcp to the append line, making the complete line (excuse any line wrapping): ------------------------------------------------------- append initrd=/rh9.0/initrd.img lang= text devfs=nomount ramdisk_size=8192 nofb ip=dhcp ------------------------------------------------------- and that made the Kernel command line (excuse any line wrapping): ------------------------------------------------------- initrd=/rh9.0/initrd.img lang= text devfs=nomount ramdisk_size=8192 nofb ip=dhcp BOOT_IMAGE=/rh9.0/vmlinuz ip=192.168.0.55:192.168.0.1:192.168.0.254:255.255.255.0 ------------------------------------------------------- The installer still appears to not configure the network adapter because I continue to get "That directory could not be mounted from the serverâ after entering values in the 'NFS setup' dialog and I continue to get the same errors in virtual terminal 4.
Following an email from Richard Au (below) a solution to this bug has been found. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Hi, I recently ran into the exact same problem as Mark Himsley doing a PXE/Kickstart installation of RedHat 9.0 (Bug 88714). I took particular note of Jeremy Katz's comment about the kernel command line incorrectly including an "ip=" entry. I found out that PXELINUX supports an entry in the pxelinux.cfg file: IPAPPEND. If you set IPAPPEND 1, pxelinux will automatically append a ip=<client-ip>:<boot-server-ip>:<gw-ip>:<netmask> entry onto the kernel command line. It seemed to me that this was exactly what was happening to my and Mark Himsley's systems. So, I explicitly specified IPAPPEND 0, and added ip=dhcp to the 'append' line. It worked!! Here is my pxelinux.cfg file: default linux label linux kernel vmlinuz append initrd=initrd.img lang=text ip=dhcp devfs=nomount ramdisk_size=8192 ipappend 0 This bug had been driving me nuts for a several days, and the combined comments of Mark and Jeremy allowed me to figure it out much faster than I ever could on my own. Thanks! Sincerely, Richard Au PANTA Systems -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- My pxelinux.cfg file did include an ipappend 1 command and after altering its value to 0 I can confirm that the installation of RedHat 9 did work. I would like to point out that including ipappend 1 in a pxelinux.cfg file had no detrimental effect to PXE instals of RedHat 7.x. Thanks to Richard and Jeremy for their combined help in resolving this issue.
Yes, having ipappend set in the pxelinux.cfg file will try to pass the ip to the installer. I've added some code to try to keep this from causing problems.
Mass-closing lots of old bugs which are in MODIFIED (and thus presumed to be fixed). If any of these are still a problem, please reopen or file a new bug against the release which they're occurring in so they can be properly tracked.