Net-installing SS20 & NFS woes (?)

[Romain Dolbeau <romain%dolbeau.org@localhost>]

Hello,

I'm trying to netinstall a new SS20 I just got. But I can't get the
bootloader to download the kernel.

I removed a problem DIMM (stuck bits), ran the diagnostics, the
hardware seems OK. However, 'boot net' fails complaining about the
carrier. Doing 'boot net-tpe' works (... to a point).
See a screenshot at
<http://www.dolbeau.name/dolbeau/files/IMG_20200809_114117608_50p.jpg>.

The host serving all the files & services is a Linux Debian 9
(oldstable) on x86-64. I don't have NetBSD-running hardware on that
network (vacations :-) ).
/etc/exports is "/ss20pinstall
192.168.0.62/24(rw,no_root_squash,no_subtree_check,insecure)" (it was
originally /32 but I wanted to check with another machine).

I've set up dhcp/bootparamd/atftp/rarpd to an extent that things seem
to work, see the screenshot above: the PROM download the boot.net
file, and from daemon.log:

atftpd[21297]: Serving C0A8003E.SUN4M to 192.168.0.62:47521
(...)
rarpd[21243]: RARP request from 08:00:20:76:3e:08 on eth0
rarpd[21243]: RARP response to 08:00:20:76:3e:08 192.168.0.62 on eth0
rpc.bootparamd: whoami got question for 192.168.0.62
rpc.bootparamd: This is host ss20p
rpc.bootparamd: Returning ss20p.dolbeau.name   (none)    192.168.0.200
rpc.bootparamd: getfile got question for "ss20p.dolbeau.name" and file "root"
rpc.bootparamd: returning server:192.168.0.200 path:/ss20pinstall
address: 192.168.0.200
rpc.mountd[21828]: authenticated mount request from 192.168.0.62:1021
for /ss20pinstall (/ss20pinstall)

The /ss20pinstall is properly exported and can be mounted from e.g. a
OSX host. I've also tried limiting the host to NFSv2 in
/etc/defaults/nfs-kernel-server:

RPCMOUNTDOPTS="--manage-gids"
#RPCMOUNTDOPTS="--nfs-version 2 --no-nfs-version 3 --no-nfs-version 4"

But I get the same error either way: "rpc_call: error = 2" then
"Cannot load netbsd: error=72", as can be seen in the screenshot.

I also tried both a compressed and uncompressed file 'netbsd' (which
is netbsd-GENERIC) in was it was a size issue.

After the bootloader asks about the device, if I hit return twice
(once for device, once for 'boot' - presumably the name of the file),
I get only "Cannot load netbsd: error=60".
Trying again, the error is now 23. All subsequent attempts are error
23 as well. If I exit to the PROM and do boot net-tpe again, the prom
reset the system and I'm back to error 72.

I'm guessing there's something wrong with my NFS setup or the network
hardware, but I can't figure it out.

Any suggestion welcome.

Cordially & thanks in advance,

-- 
Romain Dolbeau