A problem node.. nic boot

General Computing *nix and other operating systems
1

I have a new node to get working, its a Abit KV8 Pro with onboard gig network interface.
I was fully prepaired to get this working with a floppy boot trick but it seemed to be playing ball better than the others in that it seems to pick up the dchp and download the first linux bit… but just as its about to do the final bit of magic it falls over with a Kernal Panic (am i alone i finding this slightly funny :lol: )
Code thats its booting on is (node 9 works fine, its 10 thats the problem)


host ws009 {
hardware ethernet     00:11:09:C7:B8:6F;
fixed-address         192.168.0.19;
if substring (option vendor-class-identifier, 0, 9) = "PXEClient" {
filename "/lts/pxe/pxelinux.0"; 
} else if substring (option vendor-class-identifier, 0, 9) = "Etherboot" {
filename "/lts/vmlinuz.ltsp"; 
option option-128 e4:45:74:68:00:00;
}
}
host ws010 {
hardware ethernet      00:50:8D:5E:9A:0C;
fixed-address         192.168.0.20;
if substring (option vendor-class-identifier, 0, 9) = "PXEClient" {
filename "/lts/pxe/pxelinux.0"; 
} else if substring (option vendor-class-identifier, 0, 9) = "Etherboot" {
filename "/lts/vmlinuz.ltsp"; 
option option-128 e4:45:74:68:00:00;
}
}

And heres the actual error

Anyone got any pointers for me :slight_smile:

2

Yep the ltsp image doesn’t have the driver for the nic. It has to be coming after the PXE part and when the client is trying to flip onto the kernel.

3

So this is a different driver to the one that gets it off the ground and starting to boot then :confused:

I need to figure out what network chip its using and download a file from etherboot then… or are we talking about a driver of some sort ?

4

The PXE is built into the NIC on modern chips, it’s fairly dumb.
Once a response has been received, and the machine tries to boot to kernel, the kernel neither has built-in or loadable module support for the NIC, so it dies.

5

So, can i give it support for the card ? If there is a driver for this network chip i’m assuming i can just put it somewhere for the kernal to pick up ?

Other thing i’ve noticed in passing, i had a thought that perhaps i could put in a cheepo pci nic and boot to that perhaps but none of them seem to have boot rom’s although most have a socket where you can put one in but i’ve never seen these for sale :confused:

2nd plan… buy a pci nic, disable onboard nic, floppy boot with an image from etherboot to kick the pci card into life. Will this work ?

6

That’s how many of mine had to work in the past for the same reason, nearly always the 1Gb onboard ones. I’ve just moved over to the latest ltsp and new server and the kernel support the Yukon onboard on my Asus A7N8X-E Deluxe. :woot:

Wow - I gained a floppy drive :lol:

DT.

7

Top banana… i’m off out to try that :thumbsup:

8

:woot: node up :cool: