Settting up notfred's diskless - tftp problem

[Tobit]

Hi folks, I'm trying to setup notfred's diskless here on my Linux server and having problems with tftp. All of the ARP requests from all of my PXE clients are timing out. The clients are able to successfully have their IP addresses assigned by my DHCP server on the same Linux box but when the tftp stage begins, I get ARP timeout failures. I have confirmed that tftp is working as I am able to put and get from any tftp client on my network.

My gateway to the internet is your common Linksys gateway/firewall device. DHCP has been disabled on the router, DHCP is running on my Linux server instead. Could the Linksys be blocking these ARP requests on the LAN somehow? I can't imagine this being the case, everything behind the firewall should be fine. I looked through the Linksys configuration and didn't see anything obvious. I even setup a port fwd for tftp to my Linux box and was able to connect from outside of my network and get files.

Really puzzled here. Anyone have any ideas? Thanks

[Tobit]

Resolved, I ham-fisted something in dhcpd.conf

[Flying Fox]

For reference purposes what is that "something" you messed up?

[Tobit]

For reference purposes what is that "something" you messed up?

Something stupid.

How was I supposed to know 'next-server' meant the IP address of the tftp server? duh. I finally spotted it deep in the man page for dhcpd.conf

But NOW after I think about it, 'next server' means.. ok, what's the next server I'm going to pass this host off to to proceed.

[Flying Fox]

For reference purposes what is that "something" you messed up?

Something stupid.

How was I supposed to know 'next-server' meant the IP address of the tftp server? duh. I finally spotted it deep in the man page for dhcpd.conf

But NOW after I think about it, 'next server' means.. ok, what's the next server I'm going to pass this host off to to proceed.

Ha! Field 066 "Boot Server Host Name".

My Windows DHCP gives me the description "TFTP boot server host name", definitely more clear there.

[Tobit]

and now that I read notfred's instructions, it makes sense too. However, I had already had my DHCP server configured for something else and had tftp in place. notfred's was more of an after thought on this project so I only skimmed his docs. Assuming and not RTFM'ing will get you every time.