[syslinux] in.tftpd not responding when listening on 255.255.255.255

[H. Peter Anvin]

Michael Martinez wrote:
> I've got in.tftpd configured on a Fedora Linux server. The service is
> configured to boot printersm and sun sparcs. The printers boot fine, but
> there's a problem with the sparcs.
> 
> When the sparc sends an initial request for a file, in.tftpd forks a
> process to handle it. If  I do a "netstat -pan | grep tftp" I see that
> this forked process is listening on local address 255.255.255.255:<high
> port number> and is connected to the sun sparc.
> 
> However, the sparc fails to download the file, just hangs waiting. A
> tcpdump on the server shows that the server responds to the sparc with:
> 
> "server udp port <high number port> unreachable"
> 
> I'm assuming its unreachable because the in.tftpd process is listening on
> the 255.255.255.255 local address instead of the server's local address.
> 
> How do I fix this or otherwise deal with it?
> 

Sounds like your sparcs are trying to boot from the broadcast address.  I 
think you need to reconfigure your rarp/bootp/dhcp server, whichever they use, 
to give the IP address of the TFTP server properly.

	-hpa