Re: iMac netboot issues

[der Mouse <mouse%Rodents-Montreal.ORG@localhost>]

>> I'm trying to netboot an iMac.  The netboot server is 3.1 on i386.

>> [...]  I got it to the point where it loads ofwboot.xcf, but then it
>> fails to even try to do NFS, and I can't see what's wrong.

[tsutsui%ceres.dti.ne.jp@localhost]
> When I tried it on the first iMac about 10 years ago, it didn't work
> with dhcpd(8) but worked with bootpd(8).

I tried bootpd instead, but either I did it wrong or that works even
less well than dhcpd does: it doesn't even load ofwboot.xcf.  (I'm not
sure which I consider more likely; I have so little experience dealing
with NetBSD/macppc that I tend to suspect PEBKAC whenever I see a
problem I don't understand.)

[uwe%stderr.spb.ru@localhost]
> I wonder if it might be related to this:
>   http://mail-index.netbsd.org/port-macppc/2007/05/14/0000.html
> Summary - at least for ppc minis apple broke dhcp by using jumbo
> packets that ar larger than dhcp maximum message size.  May be iMacs
> suffer from that too.

Well, the packets I saw the iMac sending when ofwboot.xcf is trying to
do whatever it is it's trying to do were, according to tcpdump, 331
bytes (the DISCOVER) or 328 bytes (the REQUEST), with the OFFER and ACK
packets from dhcpd being 328 bytes.  This doesn't sound to me like the
issue outlined in that list mail - I can dig up the tcpdump capture
file and answer the question definitely if that'd help.

> I ended up booting my mini kernel off of cd for diskless boots.

I may have to do that.  Any particular notes on creating a CD for the
purpose?  I don't mind if it's not bootable in the sense of the iMac
being willing to boot off it directly, as long as there's a boot
command I can type to make it work.  Will a 9660 filesystem containing
ofwboot.xcf work?  ofwboot.xcf and the kernel?  I do have another
macppc machine I can build custom kernels on.  (Wish I had a working
CD-RW.  I have a drive and some media, but I've been unable to get the
drive to recognize once-burnt media, including to erase and re-burn.)

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