Boot from net (again)

Eugene · Apr 8, 2008, 11:15 PM

Hi all,
sorry but my search regarding the topic did not resolve my problem. There are threads regarding booting pfSense from net but they are locked and I can not post my question there.
I want to make Soekris 5501 to boot pfSense from FreeBSD 7.0 (installed on VMWare).
I followed this wonderful article http://devwiki.pfsense.org/NetBootSoekrisEmbedded
I downloaded embedded version of pfSense image and put it on my FreeBSD.
After some adjustments (I am newbe to FreeBSD) I made Soekris to start booting from my FreeBSD tftp-server, but what happens now is…

1. Soekris successfully gets IP address from FreeBSD box via DHCP
2. Soekris successfully loads /boot/pxeboot
3. Soekris successfully mounts /usr/local/tftpboot/soekris/ (this is place where I put unpacked pfSense-embedded)
4. Soekris successfully finds /boot via NFS
5. Soekris sequentially tries to find /boot.4th.split /boot.4th.gz.split /boot.4th.gz /boot.4th /loader.rc.split /loader.rc.gz.split /loader.rc.gz and fails
6. Soekris successfully finds /loader.rc and reads it.
7. Soekris sequentially tries to find /loader.4th.gz.zplit /loader.4th.gz and fails
8. Soekris successfully find /loader.4th adn reads it.
9. Soekris sequentially tries to find /support.4th.split /support.4th.gz.split /support.4th.gz and fails
10. Soekris successfully find /support.4th and reads it.
11. Soekris successfully finds /defaults
12. Soekris sequentially tries to find /loader.conf.split /loader.conf.gz.split /loader.conf.gz and fails
13. Soekris successfully finds /loader.conf and reads it.
14. Soekris sequentially tries to find /device.hints.split /device.hints.gz.split /device.hints.gz and fails
15. Soekris successfully finds /device.hints and reads it.
16. Read steps 12 and 13
17. Soekris sequentially tries to find /loader.conf.local.split /loader.conf.local.gz.split /loader.conf.local.gz /loader.conf.local and fails
18. Soekris sequentially tries to find /nextboot.conf.split /nextboot.conf.gz.split /nextboot.conf.gz /nextboot.conf and fails
19. Soekris successfully finds /kernel
20. Soekris sequentially tries to find /linker.hints.split /linker.hints.gz.split /linker.hints.gz and fails
21. Soekris successfully finds /linker.hints
22. Repeats step 20 and 21
23. Soekris reads /liker.hints
24. Soekris sequentially tries to find /kernel.ko.split /kernel.ko.split /kernel.ko.gz.split /kernel.ko.gz /kernel.ko /kernel.split /kernel.gz.split and fails
25. Soekris successfully finds /kernel.gz and reads a smal chunk of it.
26. Soekris sequentially tries to find /kernel.split /kernel.gz.split and fails
27. Soekris successfully finds /kernel.gz and reads it.
28. Repeats steps 26 and 27
29. Soekris successfully finds /etc
30. Soekris sequentially tries to find /etc/fstab.gz.split /etc/fstab.gz and fails
31. Soekris successfully finds /etc/fstab and reads it.
32. Nothing happens during 13 seconds.
33. Successfully finds dev sbin init
Then a strange things happens Soekris successfully reads init with intervals of 1-2 seconds and that is it.

Please any advice. Where the problem might be?
Sorry if you have already answered this question approximately 42 times, just give me a link in this case.

Thanks in advance.

Eugene · Apr 24, 2008, 9:11 PM

Sorry, I am stupid. Instead of monitoring boot process via tcpdump I should have changed my terminal speed to 9600 (Soekris has it at 19200) and now I clearly see booting process but it ends up with:
…..
Timecounter "TSC" frequency 433251346 Hz quality 800
Timecounters tick every 10.000 msec
Fast IPsec: Initialized Security Association Processing.
Trying to mount root from nfs:192.168.7.114:/usr/local/tftpboot/soekris
NFS ROOT: 192.168.7.114:/usr/local/tftpboot/soekris/
vr0: link state changed to UP

and nothing else...
/tftpboot/soekris/cf/conf/config.xml has
<if>vr0</if>
<ipaddr>192.168.7.7</ipaddr>

Can ping interface, but can not manage Soekris via this IP-address - no http, no https, no ssh. Console reflects only plug-unplug cable:
vr0: link state changed to DOWN
vr0: link state changed to UP

Any ideas why it does not boot further?

hoba · Apr 25, 2008, 7:55 AM

I guess initializing the nic that it started booting from throws away the bootmedia. It's like ejecting the drive while it's booting up.

Eugene · Apr 25, 2008, 12:33 PM

Please have a look at picture…. It looks like soekris loads /sbin/init (in Read reply I always have OK) tries to execute it, fails and loads again... It is endless process. Is something wrong with hardware?

Thanks.

Ben.K · Jun 22, 2008, 9:53 PM

Same problem here. Is this an NFS issue? Is there a way to change when the interface comes up?

Eugene · Jun 25, 2008, 2:51 AM

@Ben.K:

Same problem here. Is this an NFS issue? Is there a way to change when the interface comes up?

Why NFS? NFS works perfectly as seen from logs. And it is definitely not hardware problem I tried three boxes - the same results.
We have to dig into FreeBSD internals - what a net-boot proces is exactly :-))), but not enough time as usual -((( I enrolled my boxes with flash-cards. Actually I was trying to set up net-booting boxes only out of curiosity.
Regards,
Eugene.

Ben.K · Jun 29, 2008, 6:49 PM

Thank you for the resoponse :). I was trying pxe because i was having issues with using CF (whole other off topic issue I won't go into). The only reason i was curions about NFS was because i had no other way to test NFS, aside from loopback on the server itself.

Agreed about the FreeBSD boot process. It looks like this fails when init starts correct? I think that normal versions of FreeBSD will grab rc.conf at this point, but it looks like pfSesnse (via m0n0wall) has done away with the typical method. Someother time for me too, I think.

Thank you!