Hi,
A while ago I submitted a question regarding Broadcom 5700 NICs on my Dell
1750s not being recognized by RH7.3.  I was able to add the rpm for the
driver and the master node works fine.   

But, when I boot the client nodes (also Dell 1750s with Broadcom 5700 nics)
and set PXE boot the install fails.  

The client does an initial successful DHCP connection to the server.  I
assume that because I can see the appropriate IP addressed echoed on the
monitor.   Then the client seems to download some files.  Then it gets to
"DHCPDISCOVER on lo to 255.255...."  It never does "DHCPDISCOVER on
eth0....."  So, it seems that the install kernel it is getting does not have
the bcm5700 Broadcom driver.  I can also see "No adapter found" echoed on
the screen.  That's bad, right?

Am I correct in how I'm understanding this?  (That the initial, PXE based,
DHCP handshake worked but the later one (DHCPDISCOVER) did not because a
kernel without a Broadcom driver was given to the client via tftpboot)???

I'm guessing that the kernel in /tftpboot/kernel is what the client is
getting to do the install.  Of course, the Broadcom driver won't be compiled
in there.  Is that right??

So, my questions are isn't there a way to add the bcm5700 driver to the
kernel in /tftpboot, or is making a separate boot floppy/CD the only way to
go?  There's a faq about adding a driver to "the autoinstall kernel" at
http://www.systemimager.org/doc/html but the instructions are not to
comprehensive and you're first instructed to install systemimager-3.0.0
which seems like a much newer package than what comes with OSCAR 2.2.  Plus
I'm not even sure this faq is referring to the initial install kernel the
client gets from the master.  

Also, given the proliferation of new drivers, isn't it expected that the
small Linux install kernel might not have a driver configured?  Why isn't
there a way to specify a driver for the install kernel as part of the
"install_cluster" program?

I was advised to put a file called hardware.lst in
/var/lib/systemimager/images/oscarimage/etc, which I did, containing Vendor
ID, Card ID (from /usr/share/hwdata/pcitable), ethernet, and bcm5700, as
described in the systemconfigurator man page.  But this seems as if it's
only to be used by systemconfigurator AFTER a connection is first
established under the install kernel.

Can someone PLEASE tell me if I'm understanding this correctly and what I
can do to get the Broadcom NIC to work before DHCPDISCOVER starts?  Thank
you.  

Dennis

Dennis J. Gurgul
Partners Health Care System
Research Management
Research Computing Core
617.724.3169



-------------------------------------------------------
This SF.net email is sponsored by Dice.com.
Did you know that Dice has over 25,000 tech jobs available today? From
careers in IT to Engineering to Tech Sales, Dice has tech jobs from the
best hiring companies. http://www.dice.com/index.epl?rel_code=104
_______________________________________________
Oscar-users mailing list
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/oscar-users

Reply via email to