Chris Johnson
2014-04-01 13:48:40 UTC
Hi.
A little confused here because what I'm doing used to work. Now, not so
much.
I have two OS X systems and a Win 7 laptop. All have current OS updates
and run the current VBox with the extension packages for them.
The setup is a number of guests on each host. The guests are running
CentOS 6.5. All VMs are set to use Bridged Adapter networking. I
wanted everything on the same network.
One VM on each host is a cobbler server. You'll see why in a minute.
Originally I wanted a primary and a backup cobbler on different hosts.
With no trouble at all I can provision each client guest on each host
from that host's local cobbler server. Works just fine. Three or four
VBox updates ago I used to be able to install guest systems on other
hosts reliably from the cobbler server running on a just one host with
no trouble at all. Now for reliable cobbler service I need a cobbler
server running on a guest VM on each host. If I try guests on two hosts
installing from the server on one it is distressingly intermittent
failing most of the time. And yes, I know I can only run one cobbler
service at a time.
During a PXE boot install of a guest I can get what appears to be
reliable DHCP service for a guest on a different host if I first clear
the ARP cache one the cobbler server guest before attempting the PXE
boot. Given the rewriting the VBox bridged adapter driver has to do
this kind of makes sense (I think). The intermittent nature of the
problem seems to be the TFTP part of the boot process. It used to wok
fine but has become increasingly unreliable. In the failure mode I
can't even get a tftp linux client to work. And I've been unable to
narrow down why. Sometimes it will work. Doesn't neem to matter which
host the guest cobbler server runs on. Same intermittent result. I'm
suspecting an ARP problem but not sure and this, from here I sit anyway,
implicates the bridged adapter driver. But I'm guessing at this point.
I'm still going through various combinations of what starts when but the
problem is getting worse lately seemingly with each VBox update.
I'm stumped here. Not much idea what to try next. I reread the entire
networking section of the user docs last night as well as the caveats
about OS X. Still stuck.
Any ideas would be a help at this point. Tnx.
Chris j.
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A little confused here because what I'm doing used to work. Now, not so
much.
I have two OS X systems and a Win 7 laptop. All have current OS updates
and run the current VBox with the extension packages for them.
The setup is a number of guests on each host. The guests are running
CentOS 6.5. All VMs are set to use Bridged Adapter networking. I
wanted everything on the same network.
One VM on each host is a cobbler server. You'll see why in a minute.
Originally I wanted a primary and a backup cobbler on different hosts.
With no trouble at all I can provision each client guest on each host
from that host's local cobbler server. Works just fine. Three or four
VBox updates ago I used to be able to install guest systems on other
hosts reliably from the cobbler server running on a just one host with
no trouble at all. Now for reliable cobbler service I need a cobbler
server running on a guest VM on each host. If I try guests on two hosts
installing from the server on one it is distressingly intermittent
failing most of the time. And yes, I know I can only run one cobbler
service at a time.
During a PXE boot install of a guest I can get what appears to be
reliable DHCP service for a guest on a different host if I first clear
the ARP cache one the cobbler server guest before attempting the PXE
boot. Given the rewriting the VBox bridged adapter driver has to do
this kind of makes sense (I think). The intermittent nature of the
problem seems to be the TFTP part of the boot process. It used to wok
fine but has become increasingly unreliable. In the failure mode I
can't even get a tftp linux client to work. And I've been unable to
narrow down why. Sometimes it will work. Doesn't neem to matter which
host the guest cobbler server runs on. Same intermittent result. I'm
suspecting an ARP problem but not sure and this, from here I sit anyway,
implicates the bridged adapter driver. But I'm guessing at this point.
I'm still going through various combinations of what starts when but the
problem is getting worse lately seemingly with each VBox update.
I'm stumped here. Not much idea what to try next. I reread the entire
networking section of the user docs last night as well as the caveats
about OS X. Still stuck.
Any ideas would be a help at this point. Tnx.
Chris j.
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