Hello,

I'm setting up a PXE boot server to install SLES SP1 on Dell R5500 and HP z800 workstations that use Broadcom NICS. If I use dhcpcd to configure the NIC via the dhcp server, autoyast fails to find the SLES repository because the NIC isn't actively sending or receiving packets anywhere from 4 to 7 seconds after ifconfig says it's up. I does get a dhcp ip address before autoyast fail to find the repository. If I ping the workstation from the pxe server, I can confirm that the pings succeed only after autoyast brings up the red text screen saying it failed to find the install repository. If I use a fixed ip address using hostip=192.168.2.10 netmask=255.255.255.0, for example on the PXE server, I also have to pass NetWait=15 in the APPEND statement on the PXE server for it to work reliably. Apparently, the "NetWait" parameter doesn't work in conjunction with "Usedhcp" as I don't see the 15 second delay with "Usedhcp" as I do with a fixed ip address.

Obviously I can't use a fixed ip, since only one SLES install could be done at a time. So Is there a way to delay autoyast's startup in the initrd? I've tried everything I can think of from the APPEND line on the PXE server. For example, I've tried exec="modprobe tg3*; sleep 15; /sbin/dhcpd; sleep 15", NetWait=15,

Another issue is the initrd uses an old version of dhcpcd (v3.2.3) which doesn't support the whitelist feature of dhcpcd version 5.2.12. The whitelist feature allows you to specify a specific dhcp server to query for an ip address and ignore others which is what I need because we have multiple dhcp servers. Another option would be to use dhclient in the initrd and put reject statements in the dhclient.conf file for the other dhcp servers. However, until the Broadcom NIC problem is solved first modify the initrd to used either the newer dhcpcd or dhclient is moot.

Any suggestions?

BTW, option dhcptimeout is not a solution as the NIC does get configured with a dhcp address. It's the send/receive delay after the NIC's configured that's the problem.

Regards, Jerry Ponko