[syslinux] Re: Network Boot IP Configuration Dilemma

Luciano Miguel Ferreira Rocha strange at nsk.no-ip.org
Mon Sep 8 11:15:15 PDT 2003


On Mon, Sep 08, 2003 at 12:32:35PM -0500, Jon Nalley wrote:
> On Mon, 2003-09-08 at 12:23, Luciano Miguel Ferreira Rocha wrote:
> > As he uses a ramdisk, that's not a problem. You could add a MAC=<mac_address>
> > and the linuxrc would get the values from /proc/cmdline.
> > 
> > But still, personally, I don't understand the problem of letting the
> > kernel get a dhcp lease afterwards.
> > 
> > Regards,
> > Luciano Rocha
> 
> The problem with doing a DHCP afterwards is that I don't know which NIC
> to do the DHCP on - that is if I want to DHCP on the same NIC that was
> used to PXE.
> 
> The main purpose for the ramdisk is to install OS "images" to the
> machine - so what I will probably end up doing is cycling through the
> interfaces doing a DHCP on each and attempt to contact the "image
> server" using a broadcast (or something).  The only issue with that (and
> why I like the idea of using IPAPPEND) is because doing the DHCP request
> for each interface can be a slow process.

Do you require that the query will be by the same interface that got the
bootp by design, or just because the other interfaces may not be connected
to the network or to a network with a DHCP server?

If the later, then you're concerned only for the delay of going through
the interfaces until the right is found, right?

Well, that can easily be done by running the dhcp clients in the background,
instead of waiting for a timeout or an answer. The right one should get
configured before any service that requires a specific bind to that
interface would start, if you happen to have such a service.

Regards,
Luciano Rocha



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