1*44099b7bSPaul Traina 2*44099b7bSPaul TrainaCommon problems and ways to work around them: 3*44099b7bSPaul Traina 4*44099b7bSPaul TrainaBootpd complains that it "can not get IP addr for HOSTNAME" 5*44099b7bSPaul Traina 6*44099b7bSPaul Traina If the entry is a "dummy" (not a real host) used only for 7*44099b7bSPaul Traina reference by other entries, put '.' in front of the name. 8*44099b7bSPaul Traina 9*44099b7bSPaul Traina If the entry is for a real client and the IP address for 10*44099b7bSPaul Traina the client can not be found using gethostbyname(), specify 11*44099b7bSPaul Traina the IP address for the client using numeric form. 12*44099b7bSPaul Traina 13*44099b7bSPaul TrainaBootpd takes a long time to finish parsing the bootptab file: 14*44099b7bSPaul Traina 15*44099b7bSPaul Traina Excessive startup time is usually caused by waiting for 16*44099b7bSPaul Traina timeouts on failed DNS lookup operations. If this is the 17*44099b7bSPaul Traina problem, find the client names for which DNS lookup fails 18*44099b7bSPaul Traina and change the bootptab to specify the IP addresses for 19*44099b7bSPaul Traina those clients using numeric form. 20*44099b7bSPaul Traina 21*44099b7bSPaul Traina When bootptab entries do not specify an ip address, bootpd 22*44099b7bSPaul Traina attempts to lookup the tagname as a host name to find the 23*44099b7bSPaul Traina IP address. To suppress this default action, either make 24*44099b7bSPaul Traina the entry a "dummy" or specify its IP numeric address. 25*44099b7bSPaul Traina 26*44099b7bSPaul Traina If your DNS lookups work but are just slow, consider either 27*44099b7bSPaul Traina running bootpd on the same machine as the DNS server or 28*44099b7bSPaul Traina running a caching DNS server on the host running bootpd. 29*44099b7bSPaul Traina 30*44099b7bSPaul TrainaMy huge bootptab file causes startup time to be so long that clients 31*44099b7bSPaul Trainagive up waiting for a reply. 32*44099b7bSPaul Traina 33*44099b7bSPaul Traina Truly huge bootptab files make "inetd" mode impractical. 34*44099b7bSPaul Traina Start bootpd in "standalone" mode when the server boots. 35*44099b7bSPaul Traina 36*44099b7bSPaul Traina Another possibility is to run one bootpd on each network 37*44099b7bSPaul Traina segment so each one can have a smaller bootptab. Only one 38*44099b7bSPaul Traina instance of bootpd may run on one server, so you would need 39*44099b7bSPaul Traina to use a different server for each network segment. 40*44099b7bSPaul Traina 41*44099b7bSPaul TrainaMy bootp clients are given responses with a boot file name that is 42*44099b7bSPaul Trainanot a fully specified path. 43*44099b7bSPaul Traina 44*44099b7bSPaul Traina Make sure the TFTP directory or home directory tags are set: 45*44099b7bSPaul Traina :td=/tftpboot: (or) 46*44099b7bSPaul Traina :hd=/usr/boot: (for example) 47*44099b7bSPaul Traina 48