On 06/28/2009 03:53 PM, Robert L Cochran wrote: > I'm trying to install Fedora 11 using Cobbler. The test machine I am > using is a quite old Toshiba Satellite 1905-S301 laptop with a brand new > (meaning blank) hard drive. The laptop is capable of PXE booting. I've > tried to follow the directions given for setting up Cobbler. > > I have cobblerd running. > > The DVD for Fedora 11, i386 is mounted at http://localhost/fedorainstall. > > I ran this: > > [r...@deafeng3 html]# cobbler import > --mirror=http://localhost/fedorainstall/ --name=Fedora11 > /usr/lib64/python2.6/site-packages/Cheetah/CacheRegion.py:30: > DeprecationWarning: the md5 module is deprecated; use hashlib instead > import md5 > unsupported protocol > > [r...@deafeng3 html]# cobbler sync > /usr/lib64/python2.6/site-packages/Cheetah/CacheRegion.py:30: > DeprecationWarning: the md5 module is deprecated; use hashlib instead > import md5 > > > What is the above telling me? Does it mean the import action failed? > > -------------------------- > > Possibly related to the above, when I list > /var/lib/tftpboot/pxelinux.cfg I see this structure: > > [r...@deafeng3 pxelinux.cfg]# ls -al > total 12 > drwxr-xr-x. 2 root root 4096 2009-06-28 15:14 . > drwxr-xr-x. 7 root root 4096 2009-06-28 15:14 .. > -rw-r--r--. 1 root root 211 2009-06-28 15:14 default > [r...@deafeng3 pxelinux.cfg]# cat default > DEFAULT menu > PROMPT 0 > MENU TITLE Cobbler | http://cobbler.et.redhat.com > TIMEOUT 200 > TOTALTIMEOUT 6000 > ONTIMEOUT local > > LABEL local > MENU LABEL (local) > MENU DEFAULT > LOCALBOOT 0 > > > > MENU end > ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- > > > On the Toshiba laptop, there is nothing in the DVD drive (first boot > device), the hard drive is blank (second boot device), nothing is in the > floppy drive (third boot device), so the machine defaults to "NETWORK" > as the fourth boot device. Here is what I see on the screen: > > Intel (R) Boot Agent Version 4.0.19 > Copyright (C) 1997-2001, Intel Corporation > PXE:E61: Media Test Failure, check cable > PXE-M0F: Exiting Intel PXE ROM > > How do I get TFTP working? > > I think there needs to be a wiki page that can walk new users like me > through a Cobbler-based install on a remote machine. > >
After much scratching of my head and working at this steadily all afternoon, I discovered my problem seems to stem from two errors. One is mine. This incantation was a mistake for me to use: cobbler import --mirror=http://localhost/fedorainstall/ --name=Fedora11 After reading the documentation installed by cobbler on my own webserver at: http://localhost/cobbler/webui/cobbler.html#setup I should have used cobbler import --path=/var/www/html/fedorainstall --name=Fedora11 --arch=i386 This resulted in much, much activity on cobbler's part. Then I ran `cobbler sync` as required. However my Toshiba laptop didn't seem to pxeboot properly. I checked my firewall settings. I checked my DHCP server and noticed it wasn't giving any leases out to that machine. Ahh, in other words the Toshiba's pxeboot process wasn't trying to get an IP address at all. I checked the BIOS version on the Toshiba. It was 1.40 and version 2.10 can be installed. I updated it to 2.10 and tried to PXE boot again. No joy. I guess I'm going to have to use a bootable CD to install Fedora. Another problem with that laptop is that it doesn't always boot to CD. To test whether pxe booting and the cobbler interface shows at all, I whipped out a newer laptop and changed its boot order to 'onboard NIC'. The pxe boot succeeded in just a few moments and I saw my cobbler menu! Very cool, although I think one entry may be bad from my first attempting to import using the --mirror option instead of --path. So now I have a little experience. Hopefully I can use this to manage Ubuntu and Microsoft Windows installations, too. Bob _______________________________________________ cobbler mailing list [email protected] https://fedorahosted.org/mailman/listinfo/cobbler
