AIX

And the 43p still will not respond to the dhcp address allocation and start the TFTP boot. I have even tried hard coding an IP address in the SMS menu together with turning of DHCP on the Linux server. This way results in no replies to the BOOTP request from the Linux server.

It's worth repeating the question....

Do you not have a CD-ROM drive?

Yes but the 43p will not boot from a scsi cdrom drive. Hence NIM.

Further the CDROM does not even appear in the SMS boot list.

Ok, some suggestions of where the error could be:

1) NIM is utilizing the bootp protocol and hence, if the NIM server and the client are on different networks, the router/bridge/switch must be able to forward bootp requests. Is that the case?

2) NIM uses the MAC adress of the client as identification. To make the server not ignore the clients request you have to pre-define the client on the server. Have you checked this definition?

3) has nothing to do with the NIM installation but:

You *are* aware that you can alter this boot list in the SMS menu, aren't you? If you are not: this is hard to explain over the internet, but there is a redbook for the 43P and the process of how to alter the bootlist is described there. If you just want to install the machine and do not care if it is done via NIM or any other means, this should solve your problem.

I hope this helps.

bakunin

The problem is this is NIMOL not normal NIM and behaves differently. Yes the MAC address has been defined to the NIMOL server and a DHCP address allocation handshake takes place again and again. Looking in the DHCP log on the SUSE linux server shows multiple attempts at address allocation with no effect.

I am interested in the redbook, do you know off hand what it is called as the IBM site is not that good at searching for specific redbooks as I am suer you are well aware.