Hal Murray <murray@pa.dec.com> writes:
> I'm trying to re-install NetBSD on a PC, actually several machines 
> with similar configurations.  I'm not a wizard, but I've done this 
> several times on these machines so I wasn't expecting any troubles. 
> 
> I can't get through the network setup stage.  The pings don't work.

Hmm.  So, there are several reasons why this can happen that I can
think of:

* wrong addresses, wrong NIC being used, whatever.  These should be
  obvious, of course, and i'm assuming you've double-checked your
  connections, etc.  8-)

* the NIC not being ready.

One problem that I've seen on the pc (with one fxp) that i've been
testing most of my recent sysinst mods on is that if i select
"autodetect" for the media type, the pings won't work right.  I dunno
why, i can only assume that it's taking too long to autodetect, or
something.  I found that explicitly specifying 100baseTX or 10baseT
(with our without mediaopt full-duplex) did the right thing.  (I've
got the box plugged into one of the 10/100 ports on my switch, which
seems to detect things correctly according to its LEDs.)

(Your msg. made it sound like you're trying to use one of the fxp's on
a 4-port(?) card.  Is that correct?)

The other thing that I'd be concerned about is interrupt routing.
It'd be interesting to know what 'dmesg' (or, from an install floppy,
cat /kern/msgbuf) says about your machine.


> I think the problem is that I (now) have too many network interfaces 
> on these boxes.  I see an occasional message telling me to make NMBCLUSTERS 
> bigger.  These machines have 4 Intel 82558 Ethernet chips.

The installation kernel says things about NMBCLUSTERS?  That'd be
kinda surprising to me.

sysinst has no real limit on the number of network devices it supports
in the kernel, but rather has a limit that all of their names + spaces
must fit into something like 255 bytes.  you should be nowhere near
that.  8-)


> I expect it will work if I yank that card.  (The machines also have 
> a Tulip I can use.)  But that's a pain.  Is there any obvious workaround? 

You might try various media settings.


> Is there a simple recpie to make a boot floppy from an existing kernel?  
> I took a quick look in src/distrib/i386/floppies, but I'm in over 
> my head. 

Do you just want to drop the kernel on to a floppy, and see if it'll
go, or do you want to put the ramdisk/install software on it as well?

If the former:
	* newfs the floppy
	* run installboot on the floppy (see the installboot(8) manual
	  page)
	* gzip the kernel and copy it to the floppy
That should be good enough.

If the latter, i suggest:
	* modify the kernel config so that it includes a ramdisk image.
		* enable pseudo-device md
		* copy the options MEMORY_DISK_* and MINIROOTSIZE from
		  the i386 INSTALL kernel to your kernel config.
	* make your kernel
	* go to distrib/i386/floppies
	* change the Makefile so that it only contains "ramdisk" and
	  "bootfloppy"  as subdirs.
	* in bootfloppy/Makefile repoint the KERN definition to point
	  to your kernel.
	* 'make'.  (you'll need to be root for this to succeed.)
then dd bootfloppy/boot.fs (or bootfloppy/obj/boot.fs if you made obj
dirs) to your floppy.


cgd
-- 
Chris Demetriou - cgd@netbsd.org - http://www.netbsd.org/People/Pages/cgd.html
Disclaimer: Not speaking for NetBSD, just expressing my own opinion.