Netbooting JS20 again

George Tarasov george at dvo.ru
Thu Aug 28 17:38:04 EST 2008


Hello everybody!

I have some troubles to make netbooting configuration of my
BladeCenter. I understand, that this question is alreay discussed here,
but all recommendations that were be done, don't work on my server.

So, I do my experiments on next configuration.

chassis: IBM BladeCenter 8877
server:  2 x IBM Blade Server JS20

All hardware seems to be workable. At lease i don't see any errors on
MM modules' Web site in Event Log.

My blade[1] is installed on hda and it's work nice. I use Gentoo
Linuxe (image: 2008.0 with 64-bit userland stage file). So, on this
blade were installed:
1. "yaboot-static" (recommended by Gentoo community) to boot from hard
   drive - it's work perfectly. Version 1.3.14
2. "dhcpd" - it's DHCP/BOOTP server
3. "in.tftpf" - it's TFTP server
4. "gentoo-source" - i made kernel with next options:
   * first, i do "make pseries_defconfig" to create default pSeries
     configuration.
   * check "Hardware Virtual Console"
   * check "Network driver"
   * check "NFS server and client v3"
   * check "NFS root"
   * off "initrd"
   * off "NFS v4 support"
   * off some devices like USB, floppy, sound and other.

Above configuration works nice. I can restart blade[1] and i'm sure
that it's load. Next, I do preporatory stage for blade[2].

On blade[1] i have directory
   /diskless/                                    - common dir for diskless
   /diskless/blade2/                             - blade2 NFS root directory
   /diskless/tftproot/                           - TFTP chroot
   /diskless/tftproot/yaboot.chrp                - bootloader
   /diskless/tftproot/vmlinux                    - kernel
   /diskless/tftproot/etc/                       - etc
   /diskless/tftproot/etc/01-00-0d-60-1e-a6-72   - same as yaboot.conf

yaboot.chrp - It's same file that i use for blade[2] netboot and that
i wrote to PReP Boot Partition on blade[1]

vmlinux - Same kernel for both blades

The contents of /diskless/tftproot/etc/01-00-0d-60-1e-a6-72 (network yaboot.conf):

------------------------------------------------------
timeout=100
defaultos=linux
init-message="GNU/Linux (Gentoo) Network Boot"

image=/vmlinux
        label=Linux
        root=/dev/nfs
        append="nfsroot=10.200.15.43:/diskless/blade2,rsize=8192 ip=dhcp console=hvc0"
------------------------------------------------------

blade[1] has IP: 10.200.15.43
blade[2] has IP: 10.200.15.44

The contents of dhcpd.conf

------------------------------------------------------
allow bootp;
ddns-update-style none;

subnet 10.200.15.0 netmask 255.255.255.0
{
        option broadcast-address 10.200.15.255;
        option routers 10.200.15.250;
        option domain-name-servers 192.168.200.64;

        group
        {
                next-server 10.200.15.43;
                filename "yaboot.chrp";

                host blade2 { hardware ethernet 00:0D:60:1E:A6:72; fixed-address 10.200.15.44; }
        }
}
------------------------------------------------------

Ok. I set "Network-BOOTP" for blade2 in MM modules and restart it. What i see on
console?

EXXX
EXXX
EXXX
...
many firmware test messages
...
E1AD
       thinking.... abort SOL connection, when i restart SOL i see
       some non-complete output, but can press <Tab> key. When
       pressed, yaboot offers to choose image

BOOTP: server   IP =        0.0.0.0
BOOTP: requested
   Linux
boot:

       type "Linux", see...

Please wait, loading kernel...

       abort SOL connection again. After restarting SOL i see again
       yaboot prompt to choose OS image

Here, i put some lines from blade[1] log-file:

Aug 28 17:32:56 blade1 dhcpd: BOOTREQUEST from 00:0d:60:1e:a6:72 via eth0
Aug 28 17:32:56 blade1 dhcpd: BOOTREPLY for 10.200.15.44 to mvs15k-42 (00:0d:60:1e:a6:72) via eth0
Aug 28 06:32:59 blade1 in.tftpd[7778]: RRQ from 10.200.15.44 filename yaboot.chrp
Aug 28 17:33:16 blade1 dhcpd: BOOTREQUEST from 00:0d:60:1e:a6:72 via eth0
Aug 28 17:33:16 blade1 dhcpd: BOOTREPLY for 10.200.15.44 to mvs15k-42 (00:0d:60:1e:a6:72) via eth0
Aug 28 06:33:16 blade1 in.tftpd[7779]: RRQ from 10.200.15.44 filename /etc/01-00-0d-60-1e-a6-72
Aug 28 17:33:29 blade1 dhcpd: BOOTREQUEST from 00:0d:60:1e:a6:72 via eth0
Aug 28 17:33:29 blade1 dhcpd: BOOTREPLY for 10.200.15.44 to mvs15k-42 (00:0d:60:1e:a6:72) via eth0
Aug 28 06:33:29 blade1 in.tftpd[7780]: RRQ from 10.200.15.44 filename /vmlinux
Aug 28 17:38:04 blade1 dhcpd: BOOTREQUEST from 00:0d:60:1e:a6:72 via eth0
Aug 28 17:38:04 blade1 dhcpd: BOOTREPLY for 10.200.15.44 to mvs15k-42 (00:0d:60:1e:a6:72) via eth0
Aug 28 06:38:08 blade1 in.tftpd[7781]: RRQ from 10.200.15.44 filename /vmlinux

All events in blade1 log-file seems to be correct. Get IP address,
load bootloader, load bootloader configuration, load image and....
that's all.

I have already tried many variants based on howto and other
documentation. But can't get stable network booting of my blade.

Could anybody get me advice what to do with network yaboot?

Thanks in advance
George





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