Re: [Testbed-admins] network drivers in freebsd.newnode MFS?

[Brenton Walker <brenton@cs.wisc.edu>]

We have been working on getting Dell Studio Hybrids and R610s added to
an Emulab.  With the R610s it's a problem with the ethernet interfaces,
and with the Hybrids it's something I haven't figured out yet.  FreeBSD
8.0 is the only one we've gotten working on both platforms.

I was able to get newnode to work with FreeBSD 8 by taking boot/
directory from the "bootonly" iso, making a link boot/modules -->
boot/kernel, and copying the newnode mfs into that directory and putting
the whole thing in /tftpboot/freebsd.newnode.  It's certainly not the
right way to do it, and it doesn't solve the problems of frisbee mfs or
delay links, or generic images, but with some little tweaks it got us a
step closer.  It looks like the same trick might work for frisbee, but
right now it's failing (maybe) because the ethernet interface comes up
too slow.

Thanks,
Brenton


Chaos Golubitsky wrote:
> On Mon, 17 May, 2010 at 15:29:20 -0600, Robert Ricci wrote:
> 
>> If this is *just* for the newnode MFS - the newnode MFS is just a 
>> convenience - it'll help you enter some data about your nodes, where 
>> they are connected to switches, etc. If you're just adding a few nodes 
>> (as I suspect BBN is...) it's possible to enter this information 
>> manually, and this might be less work than spending time fighting with 
>> drivers.
>>
>> If you are installing dozens or hundreds of machines, of course, then 
>> the tradeoff is probably favors getting the MFS working.
> 
> Hmm.  I'm confused.  All of: (1) the newnode MFS, (2) the freebsd62
> MFS, and (3) the FBSD62 part of the generic image, are FreeBSD
> 6.x-based, right?
> 
> So, if there are drivers for any of those images supporting my
> cards, then it should be tractable to bring those drivers into the
> newnode MFS.  And, if there aren't drivers, then circumventing the
> newnode MFS isn't going to help me, because i won't be able to run
> those other OSes either.
> 
> Where did i go afield there?
> 
> Thanks.
> 
> Chaos Golubitsky
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