Help with /etc/dms needed badly!

[Dan Barrett]

	I am having severe problems attempting to boot a DS3100 as a
diskless node, using a DECsystem 5400 as the file server.  A number of very
helpful DEC employees are helping us try to solve this problem, but I am
throwing the question out to you Net folks, since nobody has a solution yet
(and we've been working on it for 3 days).

	If you have successfully done a diskless boot using "/etc/dms"
under either Ultrix 3.1D or Ultrix 4.0, please tell me what we have done
wrong!!

	We experience the same behavior under Ultrix 4.0 and Ultrix 3.1D.

	Our DS5400 is running Ultrix 4.0; the prerelease version that is
identical to the "release" version but still has the SMP bug.

	Our server's name is "server" and our client's name is "whatever".
(Yeah, cute; I know.)

	Here is what we did:

(1)	Did a fresh install of Ultrix 4.0, including the mandatory patch
	tape.  We installed ALL SUBSETS, supported and unsupported.

(2)	Used /etc/dms to:

	1.	Create a /dlenv0 partition, by choosing 'c' and then 'd'.
	2.	Create a /dlclient partition, by choosing 'c' and then 'c'.
	3.	Install all the mandatory subsets from the 4.0 boot tape
		(tape 1 of 2), by choosing 'i'.
	4.	Add "whatever" as a client, by choosing 'a'.
		We told it to swap on local disk (partition rz3c), with
		no crash dump.
	5.	Booted "whatever" by typing:

		>> boot -f mop()

	PLEASE NOTE THAT, UP TO THIS POINT, WE DID NOTHING OUT OF THE
	ORDINARY.  WE CHANGED NO CONFIGURATION FILES, LETTING dms DO
	IT ALL.

(3)	All three loaders (primary, secondary, tertiary) loaded, according
	to messages in /usr/spool/mqueue/syslog.

	"whatever" began booting.  We saw Ultrix come up, say how much
	memory we have (12MB, with only about 8MB free), and then the
	list of devices.

	Then it said something like "/ mounted on /dlclient0/whatever.root,
	/usr on /dlenv/root.mips, swap on /dlclient0/whatever.root/dev/swap".
	[NOTE THE ERROR -- WE WANT TO SWAP ON LOCAL DISK rz3c.]

	Then it told us the swap size:  32K blocks.

	Then it hung.

(4)	So, after investigating, we discovered that /etc/dms did not
	compile the secondary loader, /dlclient0/whatever.root/etc/netblk.o,
	although it did update netblk.c with the current information.  So,
	we compiled netblk.c by hand:

		# cc -c netblk.c

	and booted the client again.  (Just to be safe, we totally removed
	the client directory and remade it first.)

	This time, it did not hang when it got to the swap line.  Instead,
	after the device list, "whatever" flashed a very fast message across
	the display [too fast to see] saying something about "panic", and
	"whatever" reset itself (countdown from 7..0).

We are stuck.  Here are some answers to some common questions.

o	Yes, our disk is an RZ23 at SCSI address 3.

o	Yes, I ran nfssetup.  NFS software running is:

		4 nfsd
		4 biod
		portmap
		mountd

	Question:  Do we need lockd statd, and/or rwalld?

o	/etc/exports looks like:

		/dlenv0/root0.mips/usr -o -r=0 whatever
		/dlclient0/whatever.root -r=0 whatever

	This is exactly what is created by /etc/dms, and it matches the 4.0
	release notes.  The 3.1D line:

		/dlclient0 -n -r=0 nobody

	is no longer need in 4.0.  (But we did try putting it anyway.)

o	/dlclient0/whatever.root/etc/fstab looks like:

		/dlenv0/root0.mips/usr at server:/usr:ro:0:0:nfs::

	This is exactly what is created by /etc/dms.

o	We did try having the machine swap on the server.  We did add
	the line:

		/dlclient0/whatever.root/dev/swap -r=0 whatever

	to /etc/exports in that case.  Made no difference -- the client
	hung as usual.

o	It is not a hardware problem.  We have tried several DS3100's,
	all with the same results.  (Now maybe they're ALL broken...!)

o	I believe it is not an ethernet hardware problem.  My VS2000 is on
	the same connection right now, and I've never experienced any
	problems.

o	I have noticed that there is no kernel config file called:

		/dlenv0/root.mips/usr/sys/conf/mips/WHATEVER

	Should there be?  Who makes it?

o	Is anything missing from /etc/ttys, maybe?  An entry for the
	console itself, instead of "/dev/console", maybe?  We have a
	VS262 monitor.

Any help is appreciated.  I am totally clueless, grasping at straws.

                                                        Dan

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| Dan Barrett     -      Systems Administrator, Computer Science Department |
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