Grub 0.5.96.1

[Deon George]

G'day Grubbers!,

 

I've just upgraded my system to RH 7.1 and I noticed that my etherboot boot floppies were no longer working. (I used to have etherboot 4.6.x)... Thinking that that was strange, I downloaded and compiled etherboot 5.0.1 and my systems are once again booting OK...

 

I noticed that grub can do some network booting - so I tried to give it a go. After successfully compiling grub 0.5.96.1, and choosing "dhcp" when my machine boots, I'm finding that it takes a long time to accept the IP address that my DHCP server gives it (similar problems I was having with etherboot after I upgraded to RH 7.1 - If I boot the same machine using my etherboot 5.0.1 boot disk, it obtains and accepts the address almost instantly)...

 

(I run tcpdump and I notice that my DHCP server is receiving many DHCPDISCOVER messages and generating many DHCPOFFER messages, but it takes a long time before they are accepted REQUESTED/ACKed.) (I also get a "null: host unkown." message in syslog between my DISCOVER/OFFER messages - che?)

 

Even after I finally get an address, if I choose "kernel /tftpboot/kernel" - it never seems to load one - and a tcpdump looks like it is not even trying to contact my tftp server... (Once it finally give up and gave me an error 29 (I think) with a message something like Disk Write Failed).

 

Would you have any tips?

 

Is it also possible that the "kernel" parameter be completed by the DHCP response? IE: My DHCP server gives at the boot file name - but when I typed "boot" - I discovered I need to use the "kernel" command first.

 

Thanks...

 

...deon