Ubuntu 12.04 iSCSI boot fails

[Josef Möllers]

I have installed Ubuntu 12.04 server onto a Fujitsu BX924 blade server with an iSCSI-based root FS.
The system has iSCSI boot code which provides an iBFT (iSCSI Boot Firmware Table).

The installation went smoothly, but the first (and any subsequent) boots failed.
The messages were
IP-Config: no response after <n> secs - giving up
IP-Config: eth0 hardware address c8:0a:a9:03:c5:34 mtu 1500 DHCP RARP
IP-Config: eth0 hardware address c8:0a:a9:03:c5:34 mtu 1500 DHCP RARP
(these three lines repeating with increasing values of <n>)

As can be seen, the system has 2 interfaces, one (eth0) connected to a storage-only LAN and the other (eth1) to our company intranet.

At first I got around this by break-ing into the boot process, setting up eth0 manually
ip addr add 192.168.1.198/24 brd + dev eth0
ip link set dev eth0 up
touch /tmp/net-eth0.conf # Signal eth0 is configured
touch /tmp/net-eth1.conf # Signal eth1 is configured

Later, I added the iscsi-ibft kernel module to the initramfs and code to the iscsi scriptlet to get the required information from the iBFT (added as an attachment).
Note that this code lacks starting the DHCP client in case /sys/firmware/ibft/ethernet0/dhcp does contain a valid IP address. This is required so any lease on the address does not expire and the address is given to another client.

[Ubuntu Foundations Team Bug Bot (crichton)]

The attachment "Patch to get IP configuration from iBFT." of this bug report has been identified as being a patch. The ubuntu-reviewers team has been subscribed to the bug report so that they can review the patch. In the event that this is in fact not a patch you can resolve this situation by removing the tag 'patch' from the bug report and editing the attachment so that it is not flagged as a patch. Additionally, if you are member of the ubuntu-reviewers team please also unsubscribe the team from this bug report.

[This is an automated message performed by a Launchpad user owned by Brian Murray. Please contact him regarding any issues with the action taken in this bug report.]

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.