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Old 25th March 2009
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diw diw is offline
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Default pxeboot, bsd.rd, etcetera.

Bonjour. Long time no visit.

I have an ALIX (PC Engines).
I am doing an install from my desktop over the network to the ALIX CF card.

It is not working.
I have only spent several hours so far so I must persist ...

I think I have the DHCP and PXE bit sorted.
I have a tftpboot directory in my desktop root.
This contains a copy of the pxeboot file.
When I access the ALIX via the serial port (cu) and turn it on it talks to the DHCP server and uses pxeboot.
It tries to load "bsd" but doesn't find it.
After several tries it stays with a boot> prompt.

If I enter "boot bsd.rd" at the prompt I get:
booting tftp:bsd.rd: "numbers" "numbers"
entry point at "numbers"
Ã*
Yes, that is an "i" with an accent. The "numbers" are alphanumeric and look like memory addresses.

I have tried to write a boot.conf that says "boot bsd.rd" and put it in /tftpboot and also in /etc. It doesn't seem to have any effect.
Right now though I seem to able to at least use boot> interactively and am more interested in getting bsd.rd to run.

Any help appreciated.

Best wishes.

P.S. If someone can point me to the man page that shows how to set up the global parameters for dhcpd.conf that would be bonza.
http://www.openbsd.org/cgi-bin/man.cgi?query=dhcpd.conf
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Old 25th March 2009
ocicat ocicat is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by diw View Post
I am doing an install from my desktop over the network to the ALIX CF card.
First, PXE configuration is covered in Section 6.10 of the FAQ:

http://openbsd.org/faq/faq6.html#PXE

As I recall, configuration is reasonably simple:
  • enable tftpd in inetd.conf & re-run /etc/netstart.sh as root (covered in Section 6.2.5...)
  • copy bsd.rd and pxeboot to your tftp server's /tftpboot directory
  • create /etc/boot.conf file with 'set tty com0'
  • All you need then is a 'filename pxeboot"' entry in your dhcpd.conf file (this is when dhcpd and tftpd run on the same machine).
As I remember, the information in the FAQ was pretty complete. Reading the related manpages was helpful too.

Last edited by ocicat; 25th March 2009 at 09:33 AM.
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Old 25th March 2009
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diw diw is offline
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Yep. Done all that.

Read a lot of manpages also.

As I said before, I can't seem to get boot.conf to have an effect.
AFAICS, boot.conf is used to tell the kernel to communicate via the serial interface, as in this example from boot (8):
# echo "set tty com0" > /etc/boot.conf
I think I am GTG except that when bsd.rd starts up my tty session ends.
I suspect that the kernels don't automatically communicate via the serial console.

Best wishes.
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Old 25th March 2009
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jggimi jggimi is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by diw View Post
# echo "set tty com0" > /etc/boot.conf
Wrong place. That's your server's /etc directory. The file for pxebooting needs to be from your tftp root directory, which, if using the FAQ, would be /tftpboot/etc/boot.conf
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Old 25th March 2009
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diw diw is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by jggimi View Post
Wrong place. That's your server's /etc directory. The file for pxebooting needs to be from your tftp root directory, which, if using the FAQ, would be /tftpboot/etc/boot.conf
Haha. Good call.

I tried it in /tftpboot and also /etc.
I never concatenated the various bits of documentation. :]

It would explain why everything else seemed to work (except boot.conf).
I haven't tried it but I am very sure you are correct.

Best wishes.
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Old 25th March 2009
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diw diw is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by jggimi View Post
... if using the FAQ ...
This might help display some of the confusion:
"Note that /etc/boot.conf is only needed if the kernel you wish to boot from is not named bsd, or other pxeboot defaults are not as you need them (for example, you wish to use a serial console)."
http://openbsd.org/faq/faq6.html#PXE

That's the URI that ocicat referenced.
Variously throughout the docs it is said to go in /tftpboot or /etc.

Best wishes.
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Old 25th March 2009
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jggimi jggimi is offline
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Yes, it is confusing.

I've used pxeboot before, but never with a serial console so I've never bothered with boot.conf. But ... I know that pxeboot has to get it from somewhere, and the only place available is the tftpd server.
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Old 26th March 2009
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diw diw is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by jggimi View Post
I've used pxeboot before ...
It was my first time.
FWIW, I am up and running now.

It seems having boot.conf in the right place made the difference.
Thanks for that.

Best wishes.
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Old 26th March 2009
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robbak robbak is offline
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Looks a bit like a bug in the documentation - It might be a good idea to make a little noise about it on the openbsd mailing list, or post a PR about it.
Us BSDers are rather proud of our documentation: If there is a problem with it, the projects would like to know about them so they can be fixed.
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Old 27th March 2009
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diw diw is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by robbak View Post
Looks a bit like a bug in the documentation - It might be a good idea to make a little noise about it on the openbsd mailing list, or post a PR about it.
Us BSDers are rather proud of our documentation: If there is a problem with it, the projects would like to know about them so they can be fixed.
I incidentally posted elsewhere saying just that several moments ago. :]
FWIW, the documentation is accurate, it does however not cater to the skimmer. Unfortunately (I guess) most people frantically searching for a solution are speed reading. Pick a long man page and read the whole thing - got a spare hour? :]

There are though incorrect hyperlinks in the online manpages which is another matter altogether ...

Best wishes.

P.S. I refuse to get involved with www@, etcetera.
OpenBSD + Spam = me doing something else.
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