Bug#606515: Preseed installation does not wait for network to be ready
Package: network-preseed
Version: 1.41
We are experiencing problems automatically installing Debian Lenny on a number
of dedicated servers using PXE and preseed.
Our setup works correctly with some hardware configurations, while others give
a "Failed to retrieve the preconfiguration file" error message.
If we manually press "Continue" and tell Debian installer to fetch the
preconfiguration file a second time from the menu, installation does work
properly.
I suspect the reason it does not work the first time is that Debian installer
does not bother to wait before the network link is ready, before attempting to
fetch the preconfiguration file.
When I press alt-F4 and look at the messages it shows:
==
23:15:29 main-menu[1624]: INFO: menu item 'network-preseed' selected
23:15:32 kernel: eth0: Link is up 1000 Mbps Full Duplex Flow control: none
==
So if I understand the messages correctly the network-preseed routine is
executed 3 seconds before the link is actually up?
We assign a static network configuration to the servers using boot parameters
like this:
==
kernel http://INSTALL-SERVER/main/installer-
amd64/current/images/netboot/debian-installer/amd64/linux
netcfg/choose_interface=auto debian-installer/locale=en_US kbd-
chooser/method=us console-keymaps-at/keymap=us netcfg/disable_dhcp=true
netcfg/get_ipaddress=$ip netcfg/get_netmask=$netmask
netcfg/get_gateway=$gateway netcfg/get_nameservers=127.0.0.1
netcfg/get_hostname=$hostname netcfg/get_domain= preseed/url=http://INSTALL-
SERVER/kickstart.php/debian-preseed
(where $ip $netmask $gateway and $hostname is filled in with the information of
the server being provisioned)
==
KVM over IP screenshot of the error message:
http://image.bayimg.com/gabigaade.jpg
Screenshot of the messages: http://image.bayimg.com/gabihaade.jpg
Yours sincerely,
Floris Bos
Reply to: