Grave problems with TerminalServer in latest (8/4/04) Knopix

[gazelle]

I have had great success in the past with the knoppix-terminal server. In previous versions, it has pretty much "just worked". That is, you just run knoppix-terminalserver start and it does it all.

I have also had great success customizing it, so I'm no newbie here.

However, I recently d/l'd the 8/4/04 version and the terminal server just doesn't work. Hardware (machines, cables, etc) is exactly the same as before (cross-verified that the older version and setup works fine). Note that the one thing that is strange is that the new (current, 8/4/04) version setups up 2 ethernet devices on my machine (there really is only 1). This threw me for a loop for quite a while - but I eventually figured that my ethernet port is seen as eth1. Is there any way to disable its setting up eth0 as a phantom? Anyway, I do have "eth1" in the appropriate places in the various config files for the terminal server.

Here is a summary of what I've found (all tests were done from boot of physical CD ROM):

1) It works every so often (this is the weird part). Basically, about once a day (in a day's worth of testing).

2) The DHCP "discover" works - it gets an IP address. But the TFTP almost always fails.

3) About half the time, it just stops right there - eventually, the TFTP times out and the machine then will go ahead and boot the hard disk (i.e., the machine starts out booting PXE, then defaults to booting the hard disk).

4) The other half the time, the TFTP tries to do things the old way - based on the hex string of the client IP address (in my case, C000A8FA).
I was actually able to get the thing working by going to /tftpboot/pxelinux.cfg and linking the "default" file to this address. Then, the boot succeeds (sometimes) - by eventually dropping back to finding the file based on its IP address. Obviously, this is not a *good* solution.

Any help appreciated. But it really looks to me like it is just broken in this version.

[brownbay]

I love Knoppix...

I tried to boot my Compaq Ipaq via the terminal server and had the same problem... DHCP seems to work but it hangs (times-out) at tftp.

I'm new to PXE, this is my first try at this... hoping there's an answer coming soon

Thanks.

Todd

[brownbay]

Okay, kept digging just a bit and found this thread:
http://www.knoppix.net/forum/viewtop...&highlight=pxe

I plugged my broadband router back in, left it's DHCP settings alone, and fired up the Knoppix 3.7 disc in the laptop.
Configured the terminal server, and I am typing this message to you on the old Compaq Ipaq (533 MHz Celeron) running Knoppix 3.7 booted across the network.

Hope that helps.

[gazelle]

Okay, kept digging just a bit and found this thread:
http://www.knoppix.net/forum/viewtop...&highlight=pxe

I plugged my broadband router back in, left it's DHCP settings alone, and fired up the Knoppix 3.7 disc in the laptop.
Configured the terminal server, and I am typing this message to you on the old Compaq Ipaq (533 MHz Celeron) running Knoppix 3.7 booted across the network.

Hope that helps.

Yes. I read that thread and it does jive with my results. I think that it has to do with the state of the routing table (i.e., the output of the "route" command) at the time when the PXE client tries to do the TFTP.

Now, the brief editorial:

1) Reverse DNS sucks. I've had various problems over the years because of it, and I've never seen any reason for it.

Now, the obvious comments/questions:

1) This is new - as I mention in my post, this did not happen with earlier versions of Knoppix.

2) Is there any way to turn it (the stupid reverse DNS call) off?

3) Actually, now that I think about it, I think that just doing a "route add default gw 192.168.0.1" (i.e., the host's own IP addr) oughta fix it. I'll test later.