FYI - When performing unattended Debian installations across a network, some switch protocols/configurations thwart required DHCP negotiation by simply blocking traffic for a time, and DHCP gives up after its default timeout period.
For instance, in installing some Dell M610 blades (Broadcom NetXtreme II adapters - bnx2 linux driver module) within Cisco switch fabric running STP (Spanning Tree Protocol), interface traffic is blocked until STP can determine that the port coming on-line does not introduce any switching loops. The DHCP requests being sent during that time just fall on the floor, and DHCP gives up before it's ever really given a chance. http://www.debian.org/releases/stable/example-preseed.txt suggests that "d-i netcfg/dhcp_timeout string 60" can help, but the preseed file itself may be fetched over the network (eg; via a pxelinux.cfg/<file> append directive "url=http://host/path/to/preseed.cfg";), so DHCP already needs to have completed its task. Additionally, depending on your hardware/firmware/driver confluence and if/ how network adapters reset during system boot and/or driver initialization, DHCP negotiaions may re-occur during different phases - PXE boot, after booting the installer image, and again later during the install. For DHCP to succeed during the network install, an additional pxelinux append directive similar to "netcfg/dhcp_timeout=60" may be required to allow a freshly-bounced NIC link to finish STP before giving up on DHCP. Here's what a sample pxelinux.cfg/preseed for network installs might look like: default lenny-amd64 timeout 5 label lenny-amd64 kernel lenny-amd64/linux append initrd=lenny-amd64/initrd.gz auto priority=critical url=http://netinstall/preseed.txt interface=eth0 base-installer/kernel/image=linux-image-2.6-amd64 netcfg/dhcp_timeout=60 ======================== http://www.hps.com/~tpg/notebook/autoinstall.php http://www.hands.com/d-i/lenny/docs/setup-PXE.html http://www.waldersten.net/content.php?/categories/6-Debian http://d-i.alioth.debian.org/manual/en.i386/apbs02.html http://supportapj.dell.com/support/edocs/network/BroadCom/R125805/en/trouble.htm I'd suggest patching http://www.debian.org/releases/stable/example-preseed.txt with something like the following: --- example-preseed.txt 2009/09/18 17:15:30 1.1 +++ example-preseed.txt 2009/09/18 17:29:34 @@ -17,8 +17,9 @@ # To pick a particular interface instead: #d-i netcfg/choose_interface select eth1 -# If you have a slow dhcp server and the installer times out waiting for -# it, this might be useful. +# If you have a slow dhcp server (or STP) and the installer times out waiting +# for it, this might be useful. If this preseed file is loaded via network, +# pre-preseed this eg; "netcfg/dhcp_timeout=60" in a pxelinux file instead #d-i netcfg/dhcp_timeout string 60 # If you prefer to configure the network manually, uncomment this line and -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-boot-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
