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, SUSE LINUX AG
Head of Architecture Development

[Stefan Reinauer]

* Stefan Reinauer <stepan(a)suse.de> [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, SUSE LINUX AG
Head of Architecture Development

Stefan Reinauer <stepan(a)suse.de> writes:

  * Stefan Reinauer <stepan(a)suse.de> [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 <ebiederman(a)lnxi.com> [040322 19:59]:
  Stefan Reinauer <stepan(a)suse.de> 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, SUSE LINUX AG
Head of Architecture Development

Stefan Reinauer <stepan(a)suse.de> writes:

  * Eric W. Biederman <ebiederman(a)lnxi.com>
[040322 19:59]:
  Stefan Reinauer <stepan(a)suse.de> 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 <ebiederman(a)lnxi.com> [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, SUSE LINUX AG
Head of Architecture Development

Stefan Reinauer <stepan(a)suse.de> writes:

  * Eric W. Biederman <ebiederman(a)lnxi.com>
[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