Re: booting from host with multiple network cards
* Thomas Neumann blacky+...@fluffbunny.de [20091122 15:45]: * bootoption ethdevice: use specified network device for network booting (PXE) instead of default (being eth0). Feature contributed by Helge Wagner. Usage example: ethdevice=eth1 [...] I think about adding a newer live-initramfs package to the FAI repository, so you will automatically get a version that supports this new option. Any comments? This is just a crude hack. I don't care which interface is configured, as long as a usable interface is configured. (If there's no dhcp on this network then it's not usable - at least for mounting the nfs shares.) [...] JFYI: I just implemented a more robust network boot handling which doesn't care about the number of available network devices but just works in all situations (without any manual configuration) that I could reproduce in a HA setup. Details available at: http://grml.supersized.org/archives/337-More-robust-network-booting.html regards, -mika- -- http://michael-prokop.at/ || http://adminzen.org/ http://grml-solutions.com/ || http://grml.org/ signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: booting from host with multiple network cards
Good Morning, On Sun, 22 Nov 2009 13:38:16 +0100 Thomas Lange la...@informatik.uni-koeln.de wrote: In the past, several people had problems booting a host with multiple network cards. IIRC Dell hardware often had this problem. In newer versions of live-initramfs a new bootoption is available. * bootoption ethdevice: use specified network device for network booting (PXE) instead of default (being eth0). Feature contributed by Helge Wagner. Usage example: ethdevice=eth1 AFAIKS this option was first added to grml, then the patch was also included in the original live-initramfs package. http://bts.grml.org/grml/issue724 A backport version of the newest live-initramfs package can be found at http://live.debian.net/debian/pool/backports/main/l/live-initramfs/ I think about adding a newer live-initramfs package to the FAI repository, so you will automatically get a version that supports this new option. Any comments? I would say, setting ipconfig in /usr/share/initramfs-tools/scripts/functions to dhcp any interface which is there should be a better option. The fun part about this issue is, when you deal with trunk ports and native vlans on switch interfaces in this case, it shouldn't matter which device was pxe booting, but ipconfig (no it's not a typing mistake) should dhcp all interfaces. if one of the available interfaces comes through, the process goes on, and FAI does it's work. Setting a special interface can give a problem with udev not knowing that the device e.g. with name eth1 is really the hw device which can dhcp. Yes, there are other problems with the implementation of ipconfig (e.g. my ipconfig setup needs a timeout of 180, because loading the module for the nic and ipconfigs send dhcp request is not in sync somehow + port fast on cisco switches is not fast enough ;)) Regards, \sh -- | Stephan '\sh' Hermann| OSS Dev / SysAdmin | | JID: s...@linux-server.org | http://www.sourcecode.de/ | | GPG ID: 0xC098EFA8 | http://leonov.tv/ | | FP: 3D8B 5138 0852 DA7A B83F DCCB C189 E733 C098 EFA8 |
Re: booting from host with multiple network cards
Le Sun, 22 Nov 2009 13:38:16 +0100, Thomas Lange la...@informatik.uni-koeln.de a écrit : In the past, several people had problems booting a host with multiple network cards. IIRC Dell hardware often had this problem. In newer versions of live-initramfs a new bootoption is available. * bootoption ethdevice: use specified network device for network booting (PXE) instead of default (being eth0). Feature contributed by Helge Wagner. Usage example: ethdevice=eth1 Having the same problem on some HP hardware, I've written a small script added to live-initramfs' init system to check which interface has a cable plugged, to run ipconfig on this one. I can give it if someone is interested… Fred.
Re: booting from host with multiple network cards
Le Mon, 23 Nov 2009 10:11:25 +0100, Thomas Lange la...@informatik.uni-koeln.de a écrit : On Mon, 23 Nov 2009 10:05:47 +0100, Frédéric Boiteux fboit...@calistel.com said: has a cable plugged, to run ipconfig on this one. I can give it if someone is interested? Yes, please post it here on this list, and alo give it to the live-initramfs (the project is called debian live) guys. For Debian-live people : attached is a small script I add to live-initramfs' init system to check which interface has a cable plugged, to run ipconfig on this one (in case you're network booting on a computer with multiple network interfaces cards, and on which the boot system and Linux don't enumerate them in the same order). I add it in the directory /etc/initramfs-tools/scripts/init-premount of the Debian-live system used for netboot (FAI for example). with regards, Fred. select_eth_device Description: Binary data
Re: booting from host with multiple network cards
On Sun, Nov 22, 2009 at 01:38:16PM +0100, Thomas Lange wrote: * bootoption ethdevice: use specified network device for network booting (PXE) instead of default (being eth0). Feature contributed by Helge Wagner. Usage example: ethdevice=eth1 Does anyone know/remember, why the problem cannot be fixed properly, i.e. make live-initramfs try all interfaces and use the first one where a DHCP reply is obtained? This used to be possible with fai-kernels under etch, so why is it not possible with live-initramfs? I imagine someone could even create a patched live-initramfs package which could be used together with fai in lieu of the lenny default one? -- Toomas Tamm
Re: booting from host with multiple network cards
Toomas Tamm wrote: On Sun, Nov 22, 2009 at 01:38:16PM +0100, Thomas Lange wrote: * bootoption ethdevice: use specified network device for network booting (PXE) instead of default (being eth0). Feature contributed by Helge Wagner. Usage example: ethdevice=eth1 Does anyone know/remember, why the problem cannot be fixed properly, i.e. make live-initramfs try all interfaces and use the first one where a DHCP reply is obtained? This used to be possible with fai-kernels under etch, so why is it not possible with live-initramfs? Red Hat's Kickstart also does this, I agree it would definitely be much nicer. However, lacking that, the ethdevice boot option would at least be better than what we have now... Regards, Michael
Re: booting from host with multiple network cards
Moins, just for clarification: network NFS DHCP boot fails on multiple NIC machine https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/initramfs-tools/+bug/182940 initramfs-tools: Network configuration can't work with multiple interfaces http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=467078 Regards, \sh On Mon, 23 Nov 2009 15:30:40 +0100 Steffen Grunewald steffen.grunew...@aei.mpg.de wrote: On Mon, Nov 23, 2009 at 03:22:30PM +0100, Michael Goetze wrote: Toomas Tamm wrote: On Sun, Nov 22, 2009 at 01:38:16PM +0100, Thomas Lange wrote: * bootoption ethdevice: use specified network device for network booting (PXE) instead of default (being eth0). Feature contributed by Helge Wagner. Usage example: ethdevice=eth1 Does anyone know/remember, why the problem cannot be fixed properly, i.e. make live-initramfs try all interfaces and use the first one where a DHCP reply is obtained? This used to be possible with fai-kernels under etch, so why is it not possible with live-initramfs? Red Hat's Kickstart also does this, I agree it would definitely be much nicer. However, lacking that, the ethdevice boot option would at least be better than what we have now... I suppose there is no chance to find out which interface had been used for the actual PXE booting? For IPMI reasons, eth0 of multi-homed machines may be a public interface and eth1 the private one which is connected to the installation network. In such a case, the first DHCP response might be returned from the public network even if PXE booting took place on eth1. (which has preference in the BIOS boot order, btw) I still don't understand why we can't have back ip=::eth1 Cheers, Steffen -- | Stephan '\sh' Hermann| OSS Dev / SysAdmin | | JID: s...@linux-server.org | http://www.sourcecode.de/ | | GPG ID: 0xC098EFA8 | http://leonov.tv/ | | FP: 3D8B 5138 0852 DA7A B83F DCCB C189 E733 C098 EFA8 |
Re: booting from host with multiple network cards
On Sun, Nov 22, 2009 at 01:38:16PM +0100, Thomas Lange wrote: * bootoption ethdevice: use specified network device for network booting (PXE) instead of default (being eth0). Feature contributed by Helge Wagner. Usage example: ethdevice=eth1 I think that there would be still the problem of interface names/enumeration of the network devices. Is there any way to detect which interface was used for pxe/tftp kernel loading? -- c u henning
Re: booting from host with multiple network cards
On Sun, 22 Nov 2009 15:21:07 +0100, Henning Glawe gla...@physik.fu-berlin.de said: On Sun, Nov 22, 2009 at 01:38:16PM +0100, Thomas Lange wrote: * bootoption ethdevice: use specified network device for network booting (PXE) instead of default (being eth0). Feature contributed by Helge Wagner. Usage example: ethdevice=eth1 I think that there would be still the problem of interface names/enumeration of the network devices. Is there any way to detect which interface was used for pxe/tftp kernel loading? If you have two cards (a very common hardware), and PXE booting is done from the first card which the kernel defines as eth1, it's a perfect solution to tell the kernel ethdevice=eth1. The kernel itself does not know anything about were it was loaded from. It even does not know if it was loaded from network or disk or whatever device. -- regards Thomas
Re: booting from host with multiple network cards
hiya * bootoption ethdevice: use specified network device for network booting (PXE) instead of default (being eth0). Feature contributed by Helge Wagner. Usage example: ethdevice=eth1 [...] I think about adding a newer live-initramfs package to the FAI repository, so you will automatically get a version that supports this new option. Any comments? This is just a crude hack. I don't care which interface is configured, as long as a usable interface is configured. (If there's no dhcp on this network then it's not usable - at least for mounting the nfs shares.) Yes I agree that this would be somewhat better then the current situation, but how much better exactly? Sure you are able to specify a specific interface, but this only means that you need to write different tftp-stanza for different host-requirements - and have someone (manually) decide which to use for what. But exactly this is one of the great strengths of fai: I really don't care what system (xen vm, vmware vm, physical server type a, physical server type b) I need to install. I just launch my trusty fai and let the configspace figure out the correct configuration. tschüß thomas
Re: booting from host with multiple network cards
Sorry for the self-followup, I forgot something I don't care which interface is configured, as long as a usable interface is configured. (If there's no dhcp on this network then it's not usable - at least for mounting the nfs shares.) I have servers with up to 8 network interfaces (2 quadport NICs). I really don't want to try educated guesses which interface is assigned what eth#. Especially since HP sometimes uses 2 different chips for the 4 onboard interfaces. (BL680c G5 specific) Currently interface are assigned as follows: internal 1 - eth0 internal 2 - eth1 internal 3 - eth6 internal 4 - eth7 addon 1 - eth2 addon 2 - eth3 addon 3 - eth4 addon 4 - eth5 Who knows how long this is going to stay this way? Next kernelrelease? Next hardware revision? Forever? Well, at least industry acknowledged the problem, and there even seem to be some workarounds related to PXE stuff: http://linux.dell.com/files/whitepapers/nic-enum-whitepaper-v4.pdf Best, Michael pgp4IOR34q9pj.pgp Description: PGP signature
