[syslinux] Re: ARP Timeout

[Bob Parnes]

On Fri, Sep 27, 2002 at 05:00:35PM +0200, Steve wrote:
> check you network, sounds like a hardware problem.
> ARP is the Address Resolution Protocol and is a low level ethernet protocol.
> 
> check this site out for more info
> http://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/0,,sid9_gci213780,00.html
> 
> 

Thanks for the comment.

I got the same error (PXE E11 ARP timeout) with two different 
motherboards, a Biostar M7VKQ with a realtek 8100 lan, and an
Intel 845 BG with an intel 100Pro lan. Possibly there is something
wrong with the hardware in both systems. The realtek 8100 seemed to
work OK originally but in some cases I am now getting some flaky
effects.

I just finished two tests with the Intel board as client. In one I 
booted using the boot agent built into the network interface card
and pxelinux.0; in the other I booted with the bootrom on a floppy 
and a kernel made from mknbi. Also, the dhcpd.conf file differed in 
the two, I haven't tried to work that out yet. In both tests I ran
tcpdump.

With pxe, boot failed as before. The last line produced by tcpdump was
repeated several times and maybe would have gone on forwever if I had
not cut it off:
---------------------------------------------------------------------
0:e0:4c:7c:d9:eb ff:ff:ff:ff:ff;ff 0806 60: arp who-has 192.168.1.5 \
  tell 192.168.1.10
---------------------------------------------------------------------

Booting with the floppy succeeded. Tcpdump produced several lines as
above, but two relevant lines were
---------------------------------------------------------------------
0:40:f4:45:c2:bb ff:ff:ff:ff:ff;ff 0806 60: arp who-has 192.168.1.5 \
  tell 192.168.1.10
0:40:f4:45:c2:bb 0:3:47:ff:47:ad 0806 42: arp reply 192.168.1.10 is at \
  0:40:f4:45:c2:bb
---------------------------------------------------------------------
After these lines, the boot continued to its conclusion. 

For some reason I cannot get an arp reply using the boot agent in either
of two motherboards. Maybe the problem is due to hardware, but not knowing 
how arp works, I had assumed it is a software issue. Is there any way to
pin this down further?

Bob Parnes

-- 
Bob Parnes
rparnes at megalink.net