[gPXE] iSCSI boot works sometimes

[Chad Voelker]

Hello,

I apologize for being slightly off-topic...

I have a Ubuntu 10.04 Myth frontend that I'm trying to get booting with
iSCSI. gPXE is working, and attaching the iSCSI drive and initiating the
boot sequence on the iSCSI drive. Following the guide here:
http://etherboot.org/wiki/sanboot/ubuntu_iscsi2, it sometimes fails on the
file /etc/initramfs-tools/scripts/local-top/iscsi where it tries to call
ipconfig to get DHCP info (even though the server is there and fine,
otherwise we wouldn't have gotten this far).

This works somewhere around 1 out of 3 boots. What I've noticed in dmesg is
that when working, the iSCSI driver is loaded near the end of the process.
I've listed (trimmed) versions of the dmesg output below, if you need the
complete output let me know.

Is there somewhere that I can dictate the order that things are loaded? Any
other ideas?

Thanks.
-Chad

dmesg (entries that are repeated / unimportant are shortened with a "...")

Working...

[    0.947158] udev: starting version 151
[    1.115166] ahci ...
[    1.132935] scsi0 : ahci...
[    1.252750] ata1: SATA max UDMA/133 ...
[    1.253462] forcedeth: Reverse Engineered nForce ethernet driver. Version
0.64.
[    1.254782] ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [LMAC] enabled at IRQ 23
[    1.254869] forcedeth 0000:00:0a.0: PCI INT A -> Link[LMAC] -> GSI 23
(level, low) -> IRQ 23
[    1.254965] forcedeth 0000:00:0a.0: setting latency timer to 64
[    1.318176] forcedeth 0000:00:0a.0: ifname eth0, PHY OUI 0x732 @ 1, addr
90:fb:a6:2b:ee:ff
[    1.318264] forcedeth 0000:00:0a.0: highdma csum pwrctl gbit lnktim msi
desc-v3
[    1.348043] usb 2-3: ...
[    1.572051] ata1: SATA link down (SStatus 0 SControl 300)
[    1.572193] ata2: SATA link down (SStatus 0 SControl 300)
[    1.600025] ata6: SATA link down (SStatus 0 SControl 300)
[    1.600139] ata3: SATA link down (SStatus 0 SControl 300)
[    1.600146] ata4: SATA link down (SStatus 0 SControl 300)
[    1.600202] ata5: SATA link down (SStatus 0 SControl 300)
[    1.619530] Loading iSCSI transport class v2.0-870.
[    1.667310] iscsi: registered transport (tcp)
[    1.678221] iBFT detected at 0x93350.

Not Working...

[    0.947224] udev: starting version 151
[    1.247791] forcedeth: Reverse Engineered nForce ethernet driver. Version
0.64.
[    1.249164] ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [LMAC] enabled at IRQ 20
[    1.249252] forcedeth 0000:00:0a.0: PCI INT A -> Link[LMAC] -> GSI 20
(level, low) -> IRQ 20
[    1.249350] forcedeth 0000:00:0a.0: setting latency timer to 64
[    1.302279] Loading iSCSI transport class v2.0-870.
[    1.315354] forcedeth 0000:00:0a.0: ifname eth0, PHY OUI 0x732 @ 1, addr
90:fb:a6:2b:ee:ff
[    1.315450] forcedeth 0000:00:0a.0: highdma csum pwrctl gbit lnktim msi
desc-v3
[    1.325446] ahci ...
[    1.327784] scsi0 : ahci...
[    1.330959] ata1: SATA max UDMA/133 ...
[    1.352040] usb 2-3: ...
[    1.648030] ata2: SATA link down (SStatus 0 SControl 300)
[    1.648131] ata1: SATA link down (SStatus 0 SControl 300)
[    1.652029] ata4: SATA link down (SStatus 0 SControl 300)
[    1.652122] ata5: SATA link down (SStatus 0 SControl 300)
[    1.652132] ata3: SATA link down (SStatus 0 SControl 300)
[    1.656026] ata6: SATA link down (SStatus 0 SControl 300)
[    1.672896] iscsi: registered transport (tcp)
[    1.683754] iBFT detected at 0x93350.
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