[ipxe-devel] iPXE DHCP timed out with tg3 and Cisco sw. wo "spanning-tree portfast"

[Václav Ovsík]

Hi,
Thank you for great tool beforehand!
I just tested a rather new iPXE (cloned git repo) on Dell Latitude D830
connected to a port on Cisco switch configured without option "spanning-tree
portfast". That is it takes about 30 seconds to transmit packets over it after
bringing link up.

interface GigabitEthernet0/15
 description ....
 switchport access vlan NNN
 switchport mode access
!

The notebook D830 has tg3 ethernet device and it seems to me, that driver
brings interface down and up before DHCP -> so another 30 seconds Cisco port
is unusable and DHCP request times out.

The screen looks:

iPXE 1.0.0+ (a712) -- Open Source Network...
Features...

net0: 00:1c:23:xx:xx:xx using 14e4:1673 on PCI09:00.0 (open)
  [Link:down, TX:0 TXE:0 RX:0 RXE:0]
  [Link status: Down (http://ipxe.org/err/38086101)]
Waiting for link-up on net0... ok
DHCP (net0 00:1c:23:xx:xx:xx).................. Connection timed out (http://ipxe.org/4c106035)
No more network devices

I google out increasing the DHCP_MAX_TIMEOUT value. I tried it and it helps.
http://forum.ipxe.org/archive/index.php/thread-413.html

So either there should be fixed drivers, that brings interfaces down and
up or this DHCP_MAX_TIMEOUT should be icreased?

I used gpxe before and it didn't suffer by this.

Kindly regards
-- 
Zito