Author Topic: Strange Media Director PXEBOOT behavior - FUbar'ed  (Read 13844 times)

hari

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Re: Strange Media Director PXEBOOT behavior - FUbar'ed
« Reply #15 on: February 26, 2008, 08:56:12 am »
Here are some results after trying some suggestions:

Code: [Select]
linuxmce@dcerouter:~$ :/tftpboot/pxelinux.cfg$ more 01-00-19-de-ad-be-ef
-bash: :/tftpboot/pxelinux.cfg$: No such file or directory
linuxmce@dcerouter:~$ :/tftpboot/pxelinux.cfg  more 01-00-19-de-ad-be-ef
-bash: :/tftpboot/pxelinux.cfg: No such file or directory
linuxmce@dcerouter:~$
of course you have to substitue the MAC for the one of your MD.

best regards,
Hari
rock your home - http://www.agocontrol.com home automation

finsdown

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Re: Strange Media Director PXEBOOT behavior - FUbar'ed
« Reply #16 on: February 26, 2008, 05:38:25 pm »
Hari -It looks like there are 2 of us having exact same issue. I haven't had time to work on this, but tonight I will.  I assume that if this file exists on dcerouter, I should delete or rename it, then start the PXEBOOT again?



hari

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Re: Strange Media Director PXEBOOT behavior - FUbar'ed
« Reply #17 on: February 26, 2008, 07:21:00 pm »
Hari -It looks like there are 2 of us having exact same issue. I haven't had time to work on this, but tonight I will.  I assume that if this file exists on dcerouter, I should delete or rename it, then start the PXEBOOT again?



i assume if the MD loops at installation it's missing that generated file..

best regards,
Hari
rock your home - http://www.agocontrol.com home automation

finsdown

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Re: Strange Media Director PXEBOOT behavior - FUbar'ed
« Reply #18 on: February 27, 2008, 04:16:35 pm »
I see the same output on my MD.  After booting the MD, it reboots and repeats the following scripts, reboots, runs scripts, reboots....

Running Diskless_Setup.sh
Running DHCP_config.sh
Running Diskless_ExportsNFS.sh

Meanwhile on the Core I begin getting discovery messages for a new orbiter.  Why a new orbiter? It's a MD, not a orbiter.
Webadmin shows a new MD has been added though. 

This is screwed up. Is there anything in the SQLcvs that would cause this situation? All I did was delete the MD using webadmin and tried to re-build it with PXEboot.  Is there a sql utility to detect database corruption and fix it? 

Thanks,

Fins








finsdown

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Re: Strange Media Director PXEBOOT behavior - FUbar'ed
« Reply #19 on: February 28, 2008, 03:34:06 pm »
Well I've tried every suggestion on this topic and still I can't get this particular MD to pxeboot properly.  I've tried to develop an understanding of the process of network booting PXE clients, and read some good wiki documentation on the subject, but there doesn't seem to be an indepth documentation of the process from start to finish of the process.

I tried playing around with manually creating the directory and file structure needed to boot, i.e. I created a file called 01-{mac address} in the pxelinux.cfg directory (actually copied from another MD and renamed to correspond to failing MD's mac address and modified it with it's device #), manually created a directory called /tftpboot/{device#} and copied vmlinuz & initrd.img into it, plus created a directory called /usr/pluto/diskless/{device number}.  This  seemed to work up to a point. The MD would boot, receive it's assigned IP address, load vmlinuz & initrd.img, but then would stop with an error saying it could not mount pre-exportnfs (can't remember exactly now).

I also tried creating the MD manually in lmce admin, put in the mac address and "setup diskless w/s" but this didn't work either.


So if any of you gurus out there who might have any experience with the pxeboot process can point me in the right direction I would appreciate it very much. 

BTW, I think I will try to put in a pci 100mbit ethernet card into this MD once I can locate one and see if it can boot with it.  I wonder if the whole diskless MD creation thing is fubared or if it is just this one MD.


Fins

Marper

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Re: Strange Media Director PXEBOOT behavior - FUbar'ed
« Reply #20 on: March 01, 2008, 12:53:11 am »
I've had the same problem and in all cases it appeared to be a problem with my Mobo BIOS.  I disabled overclocking and set to standard, I also disabled hyperthreading as this one appeared to be the most problematic.  In addtion, I've had to on server MD's turn off any temp control for CPU and ensure that I did not exceed the DRAM post for the Video in the BIOS.  I set the BIOS to min 64 on some 128k.  After taking these steps I was able to sucessfully re-configure the MD.  I've had this problem over and over anytime a hardware item changed on core of MD.  Also, after looking over these items, delete the MD and recreate it in the wizard.  I hope this helps.

finsdown

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Re: Strange Media Director PXEBOOT behavior - FUbar'ed
« Reply #21 on: March 06, 2008, 03:01:04 am »
Well I am totally Fobared now I think. Nothing but a rebuild of my core is left for me to try. I bought a new NIC and it started the PXE boot perfectly fine all the way up to the point where /usr/pluto/bin/Diskless_ExportsNFS.sh runs. At this point the MD reboots and repeats the steps of PXE booting. Examining the /tfttpboot directory shows no device id directory is created for the new MD.  What is the world could be causing this? Anyone?  I believe at this point I will not be able to add anymore MD's until this is solved.  Luckily I have my core/hybrid and my one working MD already.

I really would not relish the thought of rebuilding the core. However, if I do, what can I do to minimize the work? In other words, can I backup up the database? Does anybody possibly think this a database problem causing this.  I noticed in LMCEadmin that there is a warning about deleting MD's causing database corruption. Maybe this is what happening?

Marper

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TRY THIS - Re: Strange Media Director PXEBOOT behavior - FUbar'ed
« Reply #22 on: March 16, 2008, 07:34:01 pm »
Hi finsdown - I know this problem is really a pain I have had the same thing happen at least 4 times now and I'm not sure what caused it.  in the last 72 hours I went through another spell of the mysterious fight with MCE and could not get my MD to re-install.  Finally I was able to and I hope this helps you.

First - I went into Network Settings through Admin and changed the network setting for DHCP devices to start at 100.

Second - I reloaded the router and rebooted the Core

Third - I went back and reset the Network settings to their original settings

fourth - I ran the setup diskless in the MD Section

and last - I started up my first MD and it all installed correctly.  Just now finishing up my 5 MD in the home today. 

What's odd, is everytime this has happened, I've had to take different steps to get back on track and that worries me.

Hope this helps

finsdown

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Re: Strange Media Director PXEBOOT behavior - FUbar'ed
« Reply #23 on: March 24, 2008, 06:05:08 pm »
Well in the end just rebuilding the system was what I did. Actually, it didn't take as long as before because I saved all the documentation I need to get it up and running - like the drivers for my Intel  soundcard. For some reason the ALSA drivers aren't  part of the distribution and I have to "make install" them into the kernel.  That took days to figure out the 1st time, but now it's a 15 minute fix.

Anyway a long story short, after rebuilding from scratch I was able to add my MD's again.  I think the moral of the story is be very careful when deleting MD's from Webadmin - which makes me wonder how do you delete an unwanted MD without compromising the system?

Thanks for your suggestions.




royw

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Re: Strange Media Director PXEBOOT behavior - FUbar'ed
« Reply #24 on: March 24, 2008, 06:16:38 pm »
Well in the end just rebuilding the system was what I did. Actually, it didn't take as long as before because I saved all the documentation I need to get it up and running - like the drivers for my Intel  soundcard. For some reason the ALSA drivers aren't  part of the distribution and I have to "make install" them into the kernel.  That took days to figure out the 1st time, but now it's a 15 minute fix.

Can you post your procedure for installing the ALSA drivers?  I've just concluded that is what I need to do for my diskless MD.

TIA,
Roy

finsdown

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Re: Strange Media Director PXEBOOT behavior - FUbar'ed
« Reply #25 on: March 24, 2008, 06:55:23 pm »
Here's the link to the procedure to compile the Intel hda sound module: http://www.alsa-project.org/main/index.php/Matrix:Module-hda-intel

Click on the "downloads" to get the 1) alsa-driver 1.0.16  2) alsa-lib 1.0.16 3) alsa-utils 1.0.16.

Follow the directions to "make install" the modules.  I didn't have to setup modprobe and kmod support. I just stopped after running "alsamixer" and it works perfectly afte that.