Re: Marvell/Yukon (msk) and NFS root issues and some newbie questions

[Manuel Bouyer <bouyer%antioche.eu.org@localhost>]

On Wed, Feb 18, 2009 at 01:58:36PM +0200, Ossi Väänänen wrote:
> Hello all,
> 
> just joined the list and noticed somebody else wrote a mail about 
> Marvell ethernet adapters, so here's some more.
> 
> I'm kind of new to NetBSD and have some questions. I installed NetBSD 
> 4.0.1 on a NFS+DHCP+TFTP server to be used by a Fujitsu Lifebook P1610 
> laptop that has a Marvell/Yukon SysKonnekt ethernet adapter. I ran into 
> some problems with it and would be delighted if anyone knew how to fix them.
> 
> i) When the laptop has loaded the kernel from NFS and tries to mount the 
>  root filesystem after probing device and stuff, something like
> boot device: <unknown>
> root device:   [prompting for the root device...]
> appears on the console. When I type msk0 and hit return to the rest of 
> the questions, the laptop gets an IP again from DHCP and mounts the root 
> filesystem and continues to boot.

I guess because the kernel doesn't know it was loaded over NFS ...

> 
> ii) after i), kernel asks where the /sbin/init is and the prompt 
> defaults to /sbin/init, and pressing enter makes the machine continue 
> and really start the init process... why? Because of i)?

probably

> 
> iii) When the machine is up and running, networking works really oddly. 
> The laptop can't ping anything, including self. DNS lookups work. 
> SSH:ing to another machine in the same private subnet works. Ftp doesn't 
> work (which is sad since pkg_add doesn't work either). Routing table is 
> OK and the laptop is pingable by other computers in the same subnet.
> 
> I noticed that in the kernel config (GENERIC) there's a line that says 
> 'config netbsd root on ? type ?', so if I change that to 'config netbsd 
> root on msk0 type nfs' and recompile, I should get rid of the root 
> device prompt while booting?

Yes

> 
> Also, assuming that some development is going on with the NetBSD kernel 
> and the msk driver all the time, would it be a good idea to troubleshoot 
> the msk driver problems by using the newest 5.x kernel? Can I do that 
> with the rest of the OS and binaries being 4.x?

Yes, it should work

-- 
Manuel Bouyer <bouyer%antioche.eu.org@localhost>
     NetBSD: 26 ans d'experience feront toujours la difference
--