1# $FreeBSD: src/libexec/bootpd/Problems,v 1.5 1999/08/28 00:09:15 peter Exp $ 2# $DragonFly: src/libexec/bootpd/Problems,v 1.2 2003/06/17 04:27:07 dillon Exp $ 3 4Common problems and ways to work around them: 5 6Bootpd complains: "bind: Address already in use" and fails to start. 7 You are already running something that has bound the 8 BOOTP listening port number. Check /etc/inetd.conf or 9 the equivalent for a bootp line (or in startup files). 10 11Bootpd complains that it "can not get IP addr for HOSTNAME" 12 13 If the entry is a "dummy" (not a real host) used only for 14 reference by other entries, put '.' in front of the name. 15 16 If the entry is for a real client and the IP address for 17 the client can not be found using gethostbyname(), specify 18 the IP address for the client using numeric form. 19 20Bootpd takes a long time to finish parsing the bootptab file: 21 22 Excessive startup time is usually caused by waiting for 23 timeouts on failed DNS lookup operations. If this is the 24 problem, find the client names for which DNS lookup fails 25 and change the bootptab to specify the IP addresses for 26 those clients using numeric form. 27 28 When bootptab entries do not specify an ip address, bootpd 29 attempts to lookup the tagname as a host name to find the 30 IP address. To suppress this default action, either make 31 the entry a "dummy" or specify its IP numeric address. 32 33 If your DNS lookups work but are just slow, consider either 34 running bootpd on the same machine as the DNS server or 35 running a caching DNS server on the host running bootpd. 36 37My huge bootptab file causes startup time to be so long that clients 38give up waiting for a reply. 39 40 Truly huge bootptab files make "inetd" mode impractical. 41 Start bootpd in "standalone" mode when the server boots. 42 43 Another possibility is to run one bootpd on each network 44 segment so each one can have a smaller bootptab. Only one 45 instance of bootpd may run on one server, so you would need 46 to use a different server for each network segment. 47 48My bootp clients are given responses with a boot file name that is 49not a fully specified path. 50 51 Make sure the TFTP directory or home directory tags are set: 52 :td=/tftpboot: (or) 53 :hd=/usr/boot: (for example) 54 55My PC clients running Sun's PC-NFS Pro v1.1 fail to receive 56acceptable responses from the bootp server. 57 58 These clients send a request with the DHCP "message length" 59 option and the (new) BOOTP "broadcast flag" both set. 60 The bootp server (on SunOS) will send a fragmented reply 61 unless you override the length with :ms=1024: (or less). 62 The "broadcast flag" is not yet supported, but there is 63 a simple work-around, just add :ra=255.255.255.255: 64 for any clients that need their reply broadcasted. 65 You may need to use a differnet broadcast address. 66 (Thanks to Ivan Auger <ivan.auger@wadsworth.org>) 67 68