Re: tftp

[Martin <inkubus@interalpha.co.uk>]

> I can turn the thing on, set the mac address to something sensible, get
> an ip from rarpd running on a linux box and start downloading
> linux-a.out [for sparc] by tftpboot. The problem is that it doesnt
> download the whole image, it stops at some arbitary [spelling?] point
> and then tries to execute what it's got -obviously that doesnt work as
> it hasnt got the whole image. Any ideas? the tftpd seems to work ok as i
> can download the entire image using a tftpclient on another machine.
I've had a similar problem with an SLC stopping at 1ec00 every boot. 
This was because OpenBoot doesn't respond to ARP requests while it is
downloading the image.  Solution - hardware the SPARCs MAC address on
the server (arp -s IIRC or /etc/ethers) or increase the ARP time out
beyond the couple of minutes taken to tftp the kernel.  A can of
ethereal(1) shoudl confirm that this is the case as you should see a
bunch of ARP requests from the server after the download halts.

Additionally I've had problems with a more loaded network - it seems
early versions of OpenBoot don't retry if they loose a packet in the
middle of the download - they just appear to stop.

HTH

Sweet Dreams,
 - Martin

-- 
Martin
inkubus@interalpha.co.uk
"Seasons change, things come to pass"