[ipxe-devel] trouble booting CentOS from Netapp iSCSI LUN

[Michael Brown]

On Thursday 03 Mar 2011 05:12:45 Scott Classen wrote:
> > That is the current default, if no explicit initiator IQN is specified
> > via either DHCP option 203 or the "initiator-iqn" setting.
> 
> What is DHCP option 203? Can I add another line to my dhcpd.conf file to
>  specify the iqn of my client?… like this:
> <snip>

Yes.  Buried in the middle of http://ipxe.org/howto/dhcpd, you'll find a line

  option iscsi-initiator-iqn code 203 = string;

You can use this as follows:

  option iscsi-initiator-iqn code 203 = string;
  host samos {
    ...
    option iscsi-initiator-iqn “iqn.2010-2011.com.mycustominitiator";
    .,.
  }

> I performed a GUI-based installation and in the advanced partitioning
>  section connected to the netapp, loaded the iSCSI LUNs and installed the
>  root filesystem onto the NetApp LUN. The installation proceeded as
>  expected and then I was prompted to reboot. Of course this is where I have
>  run into problems, but I think I’m making some good progress. At least
>  iPXE can successfully connect to the NetApp I just need to figure out why
>  the boot process freezes.
> 
> I think I might go through the CentOS install again and double check that
>  /boot is also being installed on the iSCSI LUN.

Also potentially worth connecting to the LUN from another Linux system and 
verifying that /sbin/fdisk gives sensible output (including a partition marked 
as "active"), and that a bootloader (e.g. grub or lilo) is installed on the 
disk.

Michael