# PXE boot fails



## kumar (May 5, 2013)

Hi,

PXE boot starts fine, but after that I am getting error message saying that "No network device available!".

Kindly anyone help me on this. Thanks in advance.


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## kumar (May 5, 2013)

For your information,

I have configured DHCP, TFTP and NFS to support PXE installation.

dhcpd.conf looks like below,

```
authoritative;
allow booting;
allow bootp;
ddns-update-style interim;
ignore client-updates;

subnet 192.168.1.0 netmask 255.255.255.0 {
        default-lease-time 21600;
        max-lease-time 43200;
        option routers 192.168.1.10;
        host ns {
                next-server 192.168.1.10;
                hardware ethernet  00:50:56:25:28:CC;
                fixed-address  192.168.1.13;
                filename "freebsd6/boot/pxeboot";
                option root-path "192.168.1.10:/usr/local/freebsd6";
```

loader.conf looks like below

```
if_ath_load="YES"
mfsroot_load="YES"
if_em_load="YES"
mfsroot_type="mfs_root"
mfsroot_name="/boot/mfsroot"
vfs.root.mountfrom="ufs:/dev/md0"
```

install.cfg looks like below

```
debug=YES
nonInteractive=YES
noWarn=YES
tryDHCP=YES
hostname=frinst
domainname=tonkersten.com
nfs=192.168.1.10:/usr/local/freebsd8
netDev=le0
tryDHCP=YES
mediaSetNFS
distSetMinimum
disk=da0
partition=all
bootManager=standard
diskPartitionEditor
#diskPartitionWrite
da0s1-1=ufs 1024000 /
da0s1-2=swap 4096000 none
da0s1-3=ufs 2048000 /var
da0s1-4=ufs 2048000 /tmp
da0s1-5=ufs 2048000 /sidn 1
da0s1-6=ufs 0 /usr 1
diskLabelEditor
installCommit
command="/dist/inst_post"
system
shutdown
```
PXE installation starts fine, but after a few seconds I get a blue screen message box saying that "No network device available!". Anyone can help me on this and let me know if you have any questions.


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## ShelLuser (May 5, 2013)

It raises the question what kind of kernel you're booting? Because although the software is "collected" from a remote network location this does not imply that your OS will automatically (and/or immediately) provide full network support.

Although I have no experience with FreeBSD on this matter I sort of assume that in general it'll behave the same. In general you'd want a static instead of a modular kernel, because although the kernel may initially load its bound to fail at some time if it can't gain access to your network. A bit of a chicken and egg problem; it could load the network module from the remote location yet in order to do so it would need the module to provide network access.

Not saying this is the case here, but that's where I'd start looking. It's the most commonly made mistake with these things.


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## wblock@ (May 5, 2013)

install.cfg (for which installer, exactly?) says netDev=le0.  But this appears to be a VM, which may have em0 by default.


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## kumar (May 5, 2013)

Thank you so much for all your help/response, after changing the netDev=em0, everything works fine.

Thanks again.


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