Linux 2.4.26 boot over network

[Barbier, Renaud (GE Infrastructure)]

I have a 440GX based board running Linux 2.4.26

I have successfully booted  over the network by setting the boot argument to
Kernel command line: console=ttyS0,9600n8 root=/dev/nfs rw ip=bootp da104_gpio=8

IP: routing cache hash table of 2048 buckets, 16Kbytes
TCP: Hash tables configured (established 16384 bind 32768)
eth0: IBM emac, MAC 00:30:f7:71:35:20
eth0: Link is Up
eth0: Speed: 10, Half duplex.
Sending BOOTP requests . OK
IP-Config: Got BOOTP answer from 192.168.49.189, my address is 192.168.49.1
IP-Config: Complete:
      device=eth0, addr=192.168.49.1, mask=255.255.255.0, gw=255.255.255.255,
     host=192.168.49.1, domain=, nis-domain=(none),
     bootserver=192.168.49.189, rootserver=192.168.49.189, rootpath=/home/proj/at921/Filesys/usr/local/gefnes/target
NET4: Unix domain sockets 1.0/SMP for Linux NET4.0.
Looking up port of RPC 100003/2 on 192.168.49.189
Looking up port of RPC 100005/1 on 192.168.49.189

Now, I am trying to boot Linux over the network using the following boot arguments:
Kernel command line: console=ttyS0,9600n8 console=tty0 root=/dev/nfs rw nfsroot=192.168.49.189:/home/proj/at921/Filesys/usr/local/gefnes/target 192.168.49.1:192.168.49.189::255.255.255.0::eth0:off da104_gpio=8

It ends up failing:

TCP: Hash tables configured (established 16384 bind 32768)
NET4: Unix domain sockets 1.0/SMP for Linux NET4.0.
Looking up port of RPC 100003/2 on 192.168.49.189
RPC: sendmsg returned error 101
portmap: RPC call returned error 101
Root-NFS: Unable to get nfsd port number from server, using default
Looking up port of RPC 100005/1 on 192.168.49.189
RPC: sendmsg returned error 101
portmap: RPC call returned error 101
Root-NFS: Unable to get mountd port number from server, using default
RPC: sendmsg returned error 101
mount: RPC call returned error 101
Root-NFS: Server returned error -101 while mounting /home/proj/at921/Filesys/usr/local/gefnes/target
eth0: Link is Up
eth0: Speed: 10, Half duplex.
VFS: Unable to mount root fs via NFS, trying floppy.
VFS: Cannot open root device "nfs" or 02:00


While debugging I noticed that emac_open was not even called yet. Hence, no packets come out. 
Linux tried to look up for a RPC port before the EMAC port is is opened.

Is that a problem that has already been seen?