bootp replies go missing

[Serge Hallyn]

I set up a bridge (linux bridge, also tried ovs bridge), with two taps. Two qemu vms, one using each tap, using virtio or e1000. Ran one as dnsmasq+pxe server, the other '-boot n'. Watching traffic on the bridge and each tap device, i could verify that boots replied to bootc requests, and the booting vm's tap did receive that reply. But it would just keep re-issuing its bootc request.

When I build ipxe from git and install the result, it works.

This was happening with 19.10. I'm going to upgrade, I assume it's fixed in 20.04, but will reply here.

[Serge Hallyn (serge-hallyn)]

Fixed in 20.04.

[Serge Hallyn (serge-hallyn)]

I was wrong - NOT fixed in 20.04

[Paride Legovini (paride)]

Hi Serge and thanks for this bug report. It is not surprising that the version in Focal doesn't fix the issue, as the version of the package in Eoan and Focal is the same:

ipxe | 1.0.0+git-20190109.133f4c4-0ubuntu2 | eoan
ipxe | 1.0.0+git-20190109.133f4c4-0ubuntu3 | focal
ipxe | 1.0.0+git-20190125.36a4c85-5ubuntu1 | groovy

As you can see Groovy has a slightly newer version, and it would be interesting to see if that one fixes the problem. You can download the .deb from [1] and install it manually with `dpkg -i <pkg.deb>`. The package shouldn't require additional deps from Groovy. (This is of course not a best practice thing and intended only for this quick and dirty test!)

If the package from Groovy works we'll have to identify which change actually fixes the issue. Once the scope of the change is known we'll be able to evaluate the possibility of backporting it to Focal. I had a quick look at the upstream commit history but wasn't able to identify a candidate commit.

If the package from Groovy is still buggy then I think the next steps are:

1. Compile the upstream source from git at 36a4c85 to make sure the problem is with the upstream source and not e.g. with the Ubuntu packaging.
2. If it's a confirmed upstream bug, bisect the source to find which commit(s) fix it.
3. Apply the commits on top of 133f4c4 and verify that the fix works.
4. Consider a SRU.

This process can break in several ways, we'll find out!

I'm setting the status of this report to Incomplete for the moment, please set it back to New after commenting back and we'll look at it again. Thanks!

[1] https://packages.ubuntu.com/groovy/all/ipxe/download

[Brian Murray (brian-murray)]

The Eoan Ermine has reached end of life, so this bug will not be fixed for that release

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

[Expired for ipxe (Ubuntu) because there has been no activity for 60 days.]