Error PXE-E53 when trying to boot machine with PXE

[iverasp]

Hi. I'm trying to make a computer of mine boot over the network using PXE. I had it working using Etherboot, but now I got a new card featuring PXE, so I would like to try that out. As the title suggest, I get the error "PXE-E53: No boot filename received". The cause for this, according to the man pages, is that "The DHCP service did not provide the name of a boot file".

I would really appreciate some help solving this. I've configured everything like told in the Diskless Nodes with Gentoo guide. My /var/log/messages file says that:

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...
Dec 26 18:56:44 james dhcpd: DHCPDISCOVER from 00:01:02:d8:b8:8c via eth0
Dec 26 18:56:44 james dhcpd: DHCPOFFER on 192.168.1.50 to 00:01:02:d8:b8:8c via eth0

Heres a copy of my dhcpd.conf file: http://asperud.net/tmp/dhcpd.conf

The two lines in my pxelinux.cfg/default file:

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DEFAULT /bzImage
APPEND ip=dhcp root=/dev/nfs nfsroot=192.168.1.40:/storage/diskless/jeeves

And heres the content of /storage/diskless:

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total 4821
drwxr-xr-x   7 root root     296 Dec 26 17:51 .
drwxrwxrwx  11 root root     248 Nov 14 17:29 ..
-rw-r--r--   1 root root 2068421 Jun  7  2005 bzImage
drwxr-xr-x  17 root root     432 Oct 18 15:27 eddie
drwxr-xr-x  17 root root     408 May 17  2005 jeeves
drwxr-xr-x   2 root root      80 Dec 26 17:51 kernels
-rw-r--r--   1 root root   12968 Dec 26 18:44 pxelinux.0
drwxr-xr-x   2 root root      72 Jun  7  2005 pxelinux.cfg
drwxr-xr-x  17 root root     432 Aug  1 20:03 router
-rw-r--r--   1 root root 1158656 May 27  2005 vmlinuz_jeeves
-rwxr--r--   1 root root 1686016 May 15  2005 vmlinuz_router

Thanks

[jamapii]

I had this symptom, too.

With most computers, I only needed a server with dhcp, tftp, pxelinux (syslinux) and nfs. But for one client, additionally pxe had to be installed and running on the server, a multicast tftp server, and the pxelinux files were expected in a different directory.

I don't know the reason. Maybe the bootloader isn't complete and must fetch some additional information or software that the pxe server provides.

Here's an ebuild (sys-boot/pxe-1.4.2)

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# Copyright 1999-2005 Gentoo Foundation
# Distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public License v2
# $Header: /var/cvsroot/gentoo-x86/net-ftp/tftp-hpa/tftp-hpa-0.40.1.ebuild,v 1.2 2005/1
0/01 12:24:18 swegener Exp $

DESCRIPTION="pxe server for port 4011"
HOMEPAGE="http://www.kano.org.uk/projects/pxe/"
SRC_URI="http://www.kano.org.uk/projects/pxe/${P}.tar.gz"
RESTRICT=nomirror

LICENSE="GPL-2"
SLOT="0"
KEYWORDS="~x86"
IUSE=""

DEPEND=""
PDEPEND="$DEPEND"

src_compile() {
        econf || die
        emake || die
}

src_install() {
        dosbin pxe
        dodoc README* Changes INSTALL README THANKS
        insinto /etc
        doins pxe.conf
}

Install it and start it (in /etc/con.d/local.start) by just running "pxe".

For me, the bootfiles weren't directly in the tftpboot directory, but under X86PC/pxelinux/.

[iverasp]

Thanks for the tip. I didnt know how to install from a custom ebuild, and there was no directory named sys-boot/pxe-1.4.2 under portage, so I just downloaded the source and compiled it manualy, then ran pxe. It didnt work..

[anonybosh]

The only experience I've had with PXE booting involved network cards which ran under the "AMD PCNet 32" (PCNET32) drivers. The PXE version on the network card was .99, and unfortunately rather buggy. After much digging on google, I finally found someone with a similar problem: http://www.vergenet.net/linux/diskless/.
Basically the solution was to turn on 'ip_no_pmtu_disc' (via /proc) and disable the tftp's blocksizing.
I don't know if this is even remotely similar to your problem, however I hope it helps, as it's the only network-booting trouble I've encountered.

[iverasp]

Didnt work out either way. I'll just use Etherboot for now.

[jamapii]

OK

For everyone reading this - using the PXE daemon was not enough. I needed a multicast tftp server, too.