Gee, this sounds familiar.  I never did get a resolution for this one.

The only solution was to manually populate the ARP table at boot time with
permanent entries.

Paul Boven sez:
/*
 * Hi folks,
 * 
 * Problem is, that after the SLC has requested its IP-address via RARP,
 * and wants to have its bootfile, it cannot be delivered because the
 * IPX does not know the HW-address it has (host is down).
 * And for some reason, it won't
 * do an ARP request out over the le0. After manually setting the
 * hardware address of the SLC into the IPX's arp-table with arp -s,
 * it will boot up without any trouble whatsoever.
 */

This hasn't ever worked, at least not with an IPX...



				--*greywolf;
--
System V Release 4 /MIS tem FIVE re LEES FORE/ n. 1.  An operating system so
hideously huge, bloated and driven by marketing rather than performance or
functionality that it has outlived its own usefulness (we hope).  See
"Wrong Answer, The".