Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!bcm!dimacs.rutgers.edu!aramis.rutgers.edu!paul.rutgers.edu!njin!uupsi!sunic!kth.se!ugle.unit.no!hanche From: hanche@imf.unit.no (Harald Hanche-Olsen) Newsgroups: comp.sys.apollo Subject: Problems booting diskless on Ethernet Message-ID: Date: 25 Feb 91 17:25:45 GMT Sender: news@ugle.unit.no Organization: The Norwegian Institute of Technology, Trondheim, Norway. Lines: 29 Does anybody know anything about the protocol used when booting diskless from another node? I am under the impression that the protocol used is rather less than robust, in the sense that it just hangs there with no attempts at recovery in case not everything runs smoothly. We have some diskless DN3000s booting off a 3500 here, and on the average it takes just one or two attempts to boot. Now, however, one of the 3000s is just impossible to get up and running, though on one occasion we had about 90% of the kernel loaded before it was stuck. Another node is showing similar signs, although with persistence we can usually get it up. I have reason to believe that the boot process can be disturbed by unrelated traffic on the net. In particular, it appears to be stumped by any ethernet packets addressed to the node: One day I realized, in the middle of the boot, that the Mac on my desk still had a telnet connection open to the 3000, so I closed the window -- presumably causing the Mac to send a `please close this connection' packet to the 3000 -- and promptly the o/s load was halted. So the question really comes down to this: Should we assume the node needs service, and call in the HPollo service guys, or should we call on the network gurus to look for funny stuff running around our ethernet? We are part of a big campus ethernet, and all kinds of traffic is on it: TCP/IP, DDN, Novell, DECnet, ... - Harald Hanche-Olsen Division of Mathematical Sciences The Norwegian Institute of Technology N-7034 Trondheim, NORWAY Brought to you by Super Global Mega Corp .com