problems with diskless booting

[Jason Pepas <jason@pepas.com>]

Hey guys,

I have been trying to set up a diskless linux workstation.

I have a netboot floppy working - the diskless machine boots and 
correctly recognizes the network card, and starts to broadcast 
requests.  I watch the hub and can see that it is really putting 
out requests, so I know the problem is not there.

On the server, I put in a second ethernet card (to keep it on a 
physically sepparate network from my internet connection), which is 
correctly configured for a static IP.

I have bootpd installed and running (ps aux | grep bootpd), and as 
far as I can tell from the howto's and such out there, I have a 
correct bootptab config file as well. (i will append the config at 
bottom of message).  I know I have the hardware address for the 
diskless client correct, because the netboot floppy displays it on 
boot.

I also have tfptd working correctly.  I ssh'ed into a remote 
machine and was able to successfully receive a file using tftp, so 
I know that is set up correctly.

I cant seem to figure out where the problem is.  At least, the 
diskless box should be attempting to download the kernel, which it 
is not.

Any ideas?

thanks,
jason
jason@pepas.com

bootptab:

# /etc/bootptab: database for bootp server (/usr/sbin/bootpd)

# first i tried this
#casper:ha=0050BA6619B4:ip=192.168.0.2:bf=/tftpboot/kernel:

# then i tried this
casper:\
	:hn=casper:\
	:ha=0050BA6619B4:\
	:ip=192.168.0.2:\
	:sm=255.255.255.0:\
	:gw=192.168.0.1:\
	:sa=192.168.0.1:\
	:ht=ethernet:\
	:hd=/tftpboot:\
	:td=/tftpboot:\
	:bf=kernel: