Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!mips!sgi!vjs@rhyolite.wpd.sgi.com From: vjs@rhyolite.wpd.sgi.com (Vernon Schryver) Newsgroups: comp.sys.sgi Subject: Re: Installing system software from a remote file: help. Summary: turn on bootp debugging Message-ID: <79469@sgi.sgi.com> Date: 31 Dec 90 05:09:22 GMT References: Sender: guest@sgi.sgi.com Distribution: comp.sys.sgi Organization: Silicon Graphics, Inc., Mountain View, CA Lines: 30 "No server" messages mean no server answered the client. Common causes are: -wrong IP address in NVRAM (use `printenv` etc in the PROM, to ensure the target machine knows its address even without a disk. Yes, you could use /etc/ethers, bootparam, and the rest, but this is easier.) -gateway not forwarding bootp/RFC-951 requests (check messages in SYSLOG on the gateways, maybe turn on some debugging on bootp in inetd.conf. If you have non-IRIS gateways, see if they forward bootp. CISCO had a bug & by now should have new firmware.) I never remember, but don't think tftp/inetd.conf permission switches/problems give that message. It might be handy to open tftp wide open. NOTE: Tftp is a small security hole even if opened all of the way, compared to the holes created by human acts (sometimes unintentionally) on almost all machines. The worst tftp can do is get to a file anyone on the target machine can get. It's no worse than an open guest account. (Any other access by tftp would be a newly discovered bug.) We have to ship tftp maximally safe to protect customers who care. Essentially all software inside SGI is installed from disk copies of the tapes. There are hundreds of us who are supposed to install each of the many dozens of builds of each release. The median engineer probably installs at least 3 times/month. If you have any lab machines to play with, you can easily install all of IRIX more than a hundred times/year, year in and year out. IRIX TCP/IP has gotten reasonably fast partly just to support this fun activity. Vernon Schryver, vjs@sgi.com