Diskless client won't boot--solved!

[Patrick Goebel]

Thanks to the power of Inter-networked brains from around the globe, I
have licked the boot problem reported earlier ("Diskless client won't
boot--please help!").

The crux of the trouble was simply the *order* of the name servers listed
in our /etc/resolv.conf file.  Yes, I know it sounds incredible,
especially after four hours of checking and re-checking file permissions,
re-exporting file systems 'till I was blue in the face, running boot and
rpc.bootparamd in verbose mode until I could recite the output from
memory, banging on the SparcStation CPU with a hammer...

In the process, I learned a couple of valuable tricks that I thought I
might share with those out there who might be as novice as I am (is it
possible?):

(1) ls -ltu [path][filename] -- to list files in the order of time last
accessed. This enabled us to verify that the client's bootstrapping
program WAS being loaded from the server and that the /etc/bootparams file
WAS being read, but that the critical file /export/client_name/root/vmunix
was not being accessed.  Ergo, there was some problem translating the
client's name as it appears in the /etc/bootparams file into a valid IP
address needed in the mounting of its root file system.

(2) Kill the rpc.bootparamd daemon and then restart it using

/usr/etc/rpc.bootparamd -d

The -d option turns on debugging mode so that you can watch the
interaction between the client and the server during the boot process.
This can be combined with (1) to determine where the boot process gets
hung.

Finally, a sincere thanks to all those who lent a helping hand and saved
me days of frustration:

Ric Anderson		ric at cs.Arizona.EDU
Dennis Michael		dennis at jessica.Stanford.EDU
Curt Freeland		curt at ecn.Purdue.EDU
Richard Oxbrow		raob at mullian.ee.mu.OZ.AU
Daniel Phaneuf		phaneuf at ireq.Hydro.QC.CA
Kerien Fitspatrick	fitz at frc2.frc.ri.CMU.EDU

Cheers,

R. Patrick Goebel                 E-MAIL: patrick at casbs.Stanford.EDU
Network Administrator             VOICE:  (415) 321-2052
CASBS, 202 Junipero Serra Blvd.   FAX:    (415) 321-1192
Stanford, CA 94305                BEEPER: Temporarily Out of Order...