[ipxe-devel] iPXE fail to execute dhcp on old system

[Thomas Miletich]

Hi,
just to be sure, your system freezes right after you execute the 'dhcp'
command in iPXE?

Please build iPXE with debugging options for the 3com driver enabled, e.g:
make bin/ipxe.usb DEBUG=3c90x:3

Adjust your build target('ipxe.usb') accordingly, if needed.

Then capture the output and post it here.

Thomas


On Sat, Aug 17, 2013 at 4:11 PM, Arnaud Adamy <arnaud.adamy at free.fr> wrote:

>   Hello,
>
> I have a problem using iPXE. And after a long search on the web with no
> result, I give up. I’m asking for your help to try to understand where the
> problem could be located.
>
> But first, I’ll explain the structure of the network I’m in charge.
> Moreover take into consideration I’m not a network specialist.
> There is a router with pfSense acting as chain-loader for PXE, pointing to
> a FreeBSD 9.1 server with PXELinux on it.
> Each machine (UNIX and Windows) gets an IP from the DHCP server of the
> pfSense machine.
> Each machines except one can start from their inboard PXE ROM program and
> load the PXELinux menu without problem.
>
> So problem is about the machine that cannot work with iPXE.
> I want to boot it from the LAN to make Clonezilla backup without the need
> of a CD-ROM
> It is a Pentium III 650Mhz machine with 256 MB of RAM and a 3Com 3C905C-TX
> PCI NIC with WOL.
> The MBA firmware support PXE 2.0. But when I try to boot from LAN it
> returns the following errors:
>
>     DHCP MAC ADDR: 00 04 XX XX XX XX
>     CLIENT IP: xxx.xxx.xxx.27 MASK: xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx DHCP IP: xxx.xxx.xxx.5
>     GATEWAY IP: xxx.xxx.xxx.1
>     TFTP.
>     PXE-T01: File not found
>     TFTP.
>     PXE-T01: File not found
>     PXE-E3B: TFTP Error – File not found
>
>     Network boot aborted.
>
> But do the DHCP request well.
> Others PCs from the oldest to the newest (and VMWare) work fine so I think
> there is a bug with the 3Com firmware.
> This machine has a multiboot with Windows 98 SE and Windows 2000. It is
> mainly used for old MS-DOS software not compatible with modern Windows.
> The multiboot management is provided by a GRUB4DOS bootloader.
> So my idea was to disable the PXE ROM of the NIC and to use GRUB4DOS to
> boot iPXE.
> For test purpose I’m using the live CD (1.0.0+ (c692a)) from your web
> site. It load SysLinux and iPXE and stop after the “Features:” sentence.
> Just the cursor blink forever.
> When I enter the console with Crtl+B, I get:
>
>     iPXE> ifstat
>     net0: 00:04:XX:XX:XX:XX using 3c905c-tpo on PCI00:0a.0 (closed)
>       [Link:up, TX:0 TXE:0 RX:0 RXE:0]
>     iPXE> ifopen
>       net0: 00:04:XX:XX:XX:XX using 3c905c-tpo on PCI00:0a.0 (open)
>
> It opens.
>
>     iPXE> ifclose
>       net0: 00:04:XX:XX:XX:XX using 3c905c-tpo on PCI00:0a.0 (closed)
>
> And it closes correctly.
>
>     iPXE> dhcp net0
>     _
>
> And from here nothing happen.
>
> To try to see it the problem exists on older versions. I’ve created a
> floppy with gPXE 1.0.1 from ROM-o-matic for my NIC and I get nearly the
> same result:
>
>     net0: 00:04:XX:XX:XX:XX on PCI00:0a.0 (open)
>       [Link:up, TX:0 TXE:0 RX:0 RXE:0]
>     DHCP (net0 00:04:XX:XX:XX:XX).
>
> And stop the same way as above...
>
> And the live CD works on all the other machine I tested it.
> I don’t know what to do to resolve this problem and I really hope you will
> be able to help me.
>
> Thank you very much for your help, in advance.
> I am at your disposal for any clarification.
>
> Arnaud
>
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> ipxe-devel at lists.ipxe.org
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>
>
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