fitz@frc2.frc.ri.cmu.edu (Kerien Fitzpatrick) (07/07/89)
This message covers problems that I ran into while trying to boot diskless clients from a server running SunOS 4.0.3. The problem occurs in two areas: the initial rpc broadcast after downloading tftpboot (boot.sun3) and after vmunix is loaded and the nfs filesystems are being mounted. If you have any TI Explorers on the net and try and boot a diskless client it is probable you will see the same problem that I experienced. The boot file makes it across via tftp, but when the broadcast occurs for the rpc call a TI Explorer answered and sent back an icmp packet saying the destination port was unreachable. This aborted the boot and gave an error message saying bad dialog with bootparam server. The second problem occurred under 4.0.1 and occasionally under 4.0.3. After vmunix was loaded another rpc broadcast went out and received bad responses. This would abort the boot sequence, but unlike the previous problem - this boot would recycle and after a few attempts it would succeed and the Sun would boot. Sun support was very helpful and very fast. What is needed to fix this problem are replacement executables for boot.sun[2,3,4] and some .o files [kernel fixes]. Bug numbers are #1018583, #1018791 and #1013639. Once I installed those fixes, all clients booted without a problem. Hopefully, this message may save someone the 1.5 days that I spent tracking this down - I thought I had mangled the upgrade. Kerien Fitzpatrick Field Robotics Center Carnegie Mellon University Pittsburgh, PA 15213 fitz@frc2.frc.ri.cmu.edu (412)268-6564