dhcp issue - Lenovo E73 - Realtek RTL8111GN
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i have updated inits and tried to PX boot again but it made no difference. now it says 120 seconds instead of 35.
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@pdit Really strange. Why would it detect the link properly after you get to the shell? Can you possibly connect your client directly to the FOG server just for a quick test? Just to get those switches out of the equation for the moment?
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“no link detected on eth0” which port is it talking about ? Fog server or the desktop that is being imaged/captured ?
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@pdit Well if you connected those directly, then I would assume both don’t have a link.
In the old days there were cross over cables for connecting PCs/server directly without switch. But that was 15 years ago. Do you see a link up LED on the server or desktop when both are connected to each other and switched on??
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It does same thing even if they are connected directly. But my question was about "eth0’ which fails to come up. which port is this ?
Also would you mind explaining me the process that is going on right from pxe booting until the computer starts being imaged or captured ?
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@pdit Linux usually names the first (Ethernet) network interface
eth0. As we see when doing a debugging session the interface comes up later on and it just seems to take hell of a lot of time. I have no idea why. Suppose this is some kind of driver issue with this particular model.Can you do me a favor? We should see the same effect when you boot any kind of Live Linux system. Download and boot Ubuntu Live DVD for example and see if it can bring up the network in the first 120 seconds of booting.
You can find some information on the boot process here: https://wiki.fogproject.org/wiki/index.php?title=Booting_into_FOG_and_Capturing_your_first_Image#PXE_booting
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Sebastian, My fog server is running on centos 7 in minimal installation. can this cause the issue i am having? i did yum update all after i install Centos 7 but it is still minimal installation. let me know.
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@pdit said in dhcp issue:
My fog server is running on centos 7 in minimal installation. can this cause the issue i am having?
Definitely not! FOG server system is not causing this I am fairly sure!
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anything to do with Ethernet port name ? in centos 7 port is named as eno1 and that is what FOG picked up.
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@pdit said in dhcp issue:
anything to do with Ethernet port name ? in centos 7 port is named as eno1 and that is what FOG picked up.
Nope! Some Linux systems use the “old” style
ethXwhile others use names likeenoXor evenenp0sX. But it’s just the naming and does not have anything to do with carrier/link status. -
After trying all kinds of options we tried removing patch cable and re connecting it back when FOG was showing "starting eth0 interface " it worked for that moment and than we re tried it worked again for same E73 desktop but when we tried completely different e73 we are back to same issue. sound like it is some type physical issue. but can’t seems to figure it out. different patch cable were tried as well.
anyways Thank you guys for all your support and quick replies. please close this thread. i will just create another Fog server hopefully it won’t give me this trouble.
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@pdit I am farily sure this is not an issue with your FOG server but more a network card/driver issue on that E73!!! Don’t think building a new FOG server will help at all.
Try other Linux Live systems to see if they have the same issue or not.
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Same E73’s works when imaged using in network Fog server. which is in Vmware VM. and connected using same old switches. we are going to replicate same setup with same hardware but in an isolated network.
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@pdit On these E73s, have they been updated to the latest firmware (bios)?
I’m my mind I don’t see us trying a cheap network switch ($20 Amazon 1GbE switch) here to 100% eliminate spanning tree or green-power switch settings.
Since its model unique, I’m not really thinking its the fog server at fault here even though the IP addresses are being handed out by the fog server. This appears to be a network link issue between the target computer and the network switch (but its not clear to me yet).
So I would first start to look at the target computer make sure the firmware has been updated which typically comes with network interface firmware too (at least on the dells). The other thing is… is there a difference in action between uefi and bios mode with this hardware? I don’t think we’ve posted what mode these computers are in when attempting to boot.
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@pdit said in dhcp issue:
Same E73’s works when imaged using in network Fog server
This is probably on a different switch as well!?! I am fairly sure this is where the difference is coming from.
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This is the Nic port specs of E73 desktop. “Ethernet : Gigabit ethernet port, Realtek RTL8111GN, Wake on LAN
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does that help in finding solution to this issue ? -
@Sebastian-Roth switch is not the issue.i tried all different switches, network cables even tried 3 more E73’s but still same issue. than i tried E72 model which is one generation older than this and that one worked. so its model specific issue.i just posted NIC description of E73 in earlier post. please check to see if there is any issue with that.
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@pdit said in dhcp issue:
Realtek RTL8111GN
Searching the web for this NIC I find many people having all sorts of issues with this!
https://www.unixblogger.com/the-pain-of-an-realtek-rtl8111rtl8168-ethernet-card/
https://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1793279
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/1007236So you are right. It seams model specific. Not sure when I will find the time to build a kernel with a modified driver version. Not sure if we want to maintain a different driver version anyway.
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Not sure why same E73 works in another FOG server which is in our network.The only difference is that DHCP is handled by our own DHCP server.the process of NIC going down and coming back up is same across all computers. I have feeling some service in FOG not working as it should in this isolated setup. just not able to point which one it is. if you guys think this isn’t FOG issue. feel free to resolve this post.
Thank you all for quick responses.Appreciate all help.
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@pdit Well, not knowing your setup in all details makes it hard to guess about the reasons.
Do you have different versions of FOG running on those two different servers?