unreliably booting off a BCM5701.

[Stefan Reinauer]

Hi,

1.1.6 seems really picky when using etherboot for network booting.
The link seems very often to go up and down at will, before a real 
boot happens. See attached log.

Any idea?

Regards,
    Stefan

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

LinuxBIOS-1.1.6.0-Fallback Mo Mär 22 17:42:39 CET 2004 starting...
setting up resource map....done.
ht reset -

LinuxBIOS-1.1.6.0-Fallback Mo Mär 22 17:42:39 CET 2004 starting...
setting up resource map....done.
Initializing memory:  done
Clearing LinuxBIOS memory:  done
Testing DRAM : 00000000-00100000
DRAM fill: 00000000-00100000
00100000
DRAM filled
DRAM verify: 00000000-00100000
00100000
DRAM verified
Done.
Copying LinuxBIOS to ram.
Jumping to LinuxBIOS.
Jumping to LinuxBIOS.
ROM segment 0xb7fa length 0xff3e reloc 0x00020000
CPU 1650 Mhz
Etherboot 5.3.6 (GPL) http://etherboot.org Tagged ELF for [TG3][IDE]
Relocating _text from: [000264e0,00058510) to [1fecdfd0,1ff00000)
Boot from (N)etwork or (Q)uit? ^TProbing pci nic...
[tg3-5701]Ethernet addr: 00:04:76:E0:11:99
Tigon3 [partno(3C996B-T) rev 0105 PHY(5701)] (PCI:33MHz:32-bit)
Link is up at 1000 Mbps, full duplex. TX RX flow control
Searching for server (DHCP)...
.Link is down.
Link is up at 1000 Mbps, full duplex. TX RX flow control
Link is down.
Link is up at 1000 Mbps, full duplex. TX RX flow control
Link is down.
Link is up at 1000 Mbps, full duplex. TX RX flow control
.Link is down.

[..]

Link is up at 1000 Mbps, full duplex. TX RX flow control
..Me: 192.168.0.2, Server: 192.168.0.1
Loading 192.168.0.1:kernel.elf ...(ELF)... ...........  [..] ......done
Firmware type: LinuxBIOS

[Stefan Reinauer]

* Stefan Reinauer  [040322 18:01]:
> Link is up at 1000 Mbps, full duplex. TX RX flow control
> ..Me: 192.168.0.2, Server: 192.168.0.1
> Loading 192.168.0.1:kernel.elf ...(ELF)... ...........  [..] ......done
> Firmware type: LinuxBIOS

Also, I could not get beyound this point with a Linux 2.6.5rc1 kernel.
Linux 2.4.x boots through to userland... It looks like a kernel issue,
but could it come from mkelfImage?

Stefan

Stefan Reinauer  writes:
> Stefan Reinauer  [040322 18:01]:
> > Link is up at 1000 Mbps, full duplex. TX RX flow control
> > ..Me: 192.168.0.2, Server: 192.168.0.1
> > Loading 192.168.0.1:kernel.elf ...(ELF)... ...........  [..] ......done
> > Firmware type: LinuxBIOS
>
> Also, I could not get beyound this point with a Linux 2.6.5rc1 kernel.
> Linux 2.4.x boots through to userland... It looks like a kernel issue,
> but could it come from mkelfImage?

Possibly.  Either that or you got hit with the changes to the
2.6.x config option changes.  I have booted a 2.6 kernel.  So unless
it is a very recent change things should still work.

Have you tried memtest86?  I am quite curious to if your memory
is working solidly.  With all of your bootloaders going haywire
I really don't know what to think.

This might be a glitch in 5.3.recent as well.  I have not looked
in detail at what is going on there.  I can't think of anything
that would cause a failure like that.

Eric

[Stefan Reinauer]

* Eric W. Biederman  [040322 19:59]:
> Stefan Reinauer  writes:
> > Also, I could not get beyound this point with a Linux 2.6.5rc1 kernel.
> > Linux 2.4.x boots through to userland... It looks like a kernel issue,
> > but could it come from mkelfImage?
>
> Possibly.  Either that or you got hit with the changes to the
> 2.6.x config option changes.  I have booted a 2.6 kernel.  So unless
> it is a very recent change things should still work.

I definitely have booted 2.6 kernels up to 2.6.2 under LinuxBIOS as
well.
> Have you tried memtest86?  I am quite curious to if your memory
> is working solidly.  With all of your bootloaders going haywire
> I really don't know what to think.

No memtest yet, but filo and etherboot, and linux kernel 2.4 - When they
get loaded, they seem to work seamlessly...
> This might be a glitch in 5.3.recent as well.  I have not looked
> in detail at what is going on there.  I can't think of anything
> that would cause a failure like that.

5.3.recent?

Stefan

Stefan Reinauer  writes:
> Eric W. Biederman  [040322 19:59]:
> > Stefan Reinauer  writes:
> > > Also, I could not get beyound this point with a Linux 2.6.5rc1 kernel.
> > > Linux 2.4.x boots through to userland... It looks like a kernel issue,
> > > but could it come from mkelfImage?
> >
> > Possibly.  Either that or you got hit with the changes to the
> > 2.6.x config option changes.  I have booted a 2.6 kernel.  So unless
> > it is a very recent change things should still work.
>
> I definitely have booted 2.6 kernels up to 2.6.2 under LinuxBIOS as
> well.

Ok that is peculiar.  2.6.5rc1 has some patches to head.S which possibly
accounts for it as soon as I have a moment I will check and see if
that is what breaks it.  From the looks the changes to head.S should
not break anything....
> > Have you tried memtest86?  I am quite curious to if your memory
> > is working solidly.  With all of your bootloaders going haywire
> > I really don't know what to think.
>
> No memtest yet, but filo and etherboot, and linux kernel 2.4 - When they
> get loaded, they seem to work seamlessly...

So the etherboot and filo issues were resolved?
> > This might be a glitch in 5.3.recent as well.  I have not looked
> > in detail at what is going on there.  I can't think of anything
> > that would cause a failure like that.
>
> 5.3.recent?

5.3.x is the development version, and there is some major development
going on there to implement pxe support so I don't know what is
going on.

Eric

[Stefan Reinauer]

* Eric W. Biederman  [040324 00:34]:
> Ok that is peculiar.  2.6.5rc1 has some patches to head.S which possibly
> accounts for it as soon as I have a moment I will check and see if
> that is what breaks it.  From the looks the changes to head.S should
> not break anything....

Ok. I'll try to investigate this later, but apparently these changes
seem to influence the situation.
> > No memtest yet, but filo and etherboot, and linux kernel 2.4 - When they
> > get loaded, they seem to work seamlessly...
>
> So the etherboot and filo issues were resolved?

They start fine. The issues I had are still there, though. I'll build a
memtest86 and do some testing...
> > 5.3.recent?
>
> 5.3.x is the development version, and there is some major development
> going on there to implement pxe support so I don't know what is
> going on.

Ok, I'll try going back. Can you recommend a certain version?

Stefan

Stefan Reinauer  writes:
> Eric W. Biederman  [040324 00:34]:
> > Ok that is peculiar.  2.6.5rc1 has some patches to head.S which possibly
> > accounts for it as soon as I have a moment I will check and see if
> > that is what breaks it.  From the looks the changes to head.S should
> > not break anything....
>
> Ok. I'll try to investigate this later, but apparently these changes
> seem to influence the situation.

2.6.5rc3 has been tested and works here...
> > > No memtest yet, but filo and etherboot, and linux kernel 2.4 - When they
> > > get loaded, they seem to work seamlessly...
> >
> > So the etherboot and filo issues were resolved?
>
> They start fine. The issues I had are still there, though. I'll build a
> memtest86 and do some testing...
> > > 5.3.recent?
> >
> > 5.3.x is the development version, and there is some major development
> > going on there to implement pxe support so I don't know what is
> > going on.
>
> Ok, I'll try going back. Can you recommend a certain version?

Any 5.2 should be fine.

Eric