NetworkBootingIndy - Debian Wiki

How to netboot an SGI Indy

At the time of writing, there are three Debian packages offering TFTP servers. However, in order to netboot an SGI Indy it is best to use the tftpd-hpa package. Several users have been unsuccessful with the tftpd and atftpd packages.

Example

The network is 192.168.1.0/255.255.255.0 . The DHCP and TFTP servers are both to be hosted on chupacabras, whose IP address is 192.168.1.3 . For the purpose of installation, the Indy is to be given the fixed IP address 192.168.1.197 via DHCP. The Indy's IP address can be reconfigured during the install process. The MAC address of the Indy is 08:00:69:09:b4:26.

Set up the DHCP server. A good package to use is dhcp3-server. Here is a dhcpd.conf for this example:

steve@chupacabras:~ cat /etc/dhcp3/dhcpd.conf
# The network
subnet 192.168.1.0 netmask 255.255.255.0 {}

# The Indy to be netboot'ed
host indy {
    # MAC address of the Indy
       hardware ethernet 08:00:69:09:b4:26;
    # IP of the TFTP server, also 192.168.1.3 in this example.
       next-server 192.168.1.3;
    # IP to be leased to the Indy, for installation purposes.
       fixed-address 192.168.1.197;
    # The name of the TFTP boot image.
       filename "netboot-boot.img";
}

Obtain the TFTP boot image according to the instructions in the Debian Installation Manual. The file in this example is called netboot-boot.img.
Put netboot-boot.img in the /tftpboot directory of chupacabras. Make this directory if necessary, and ensure that the file is world-readable.

steve@chupacabras:~ ls -l /tftpboot/
total 4620
-rw-r--r--  1 root root 4716488 2006-06-10 18:23 netboot-boot.img

Set up the TFTP server. Remember, the tftpd-hpa package is advisable. The command below runs the server in standalone mode (-l), in contrast to via an internet superserver like inetd. Do not have an inetd.conf entry for tftp if you are going to run TFTP standalone, otherwise port 69/udp will already be bound!

root@chupacabras:/home/steve# in.tftpd -l -s /tftpboot

Now for an Indy-specific gotcha. Apparently, an Indy PROM can cope with neither port numbers greater than 32767 nor path-MTU discovery. The following two commands counteract these respective problems. Otherwise, the Indy will timeout when attempting to obtain the TFTP boot image.

steve@chupacabras:~ echo "2048 32767" > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/ip_local_port_range
steve@chupacabras:~ echo 1 > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/ip_no_pmtu_disc

chupacabras is thus prepared.

Power up the Indy, clicking on 'Stop for maintenance' during the boot to go into the Command Monitor. Enter the following commands at the maintenance prompt:

>> unsetenv netaddr
>> bootp():

You should see the following lines, together with some numbers and a spinning \-cursor as the boot image transfers.

Setting $netaddr to 192.168.1.197 (from server )
Obtaining  from server.

Thanks to The Fungi, Laurence Darby, Stuart Longland and Thiemo Seufer on the debian-mips@lists.debian.org mailing list.