[Bug 848072] Re: [oneiric] net-installer dhcp client fails with a DHCPDECLINE

[Jacob Strauss]

Yes, I have a PXE & DHCP server serving out the netboot kernel and
initrd.gz file, as copied from the mirrors in ubuntu/dists/oneiric/main
/installer-amd64/current/images/netboot/ubuntu-installer/amd64/.

I created a stripped down kickstart file to demonstrate, and will attach
the kickstart config file and a resulting syslog.  Yes, it's the network
configuration step that's failing.

The commented-out %pre section in the kickstart file is how I worked
around it as previously mentioned.

The pxe server is using the following to serve out the boot images:

label ubuntu-minimal
        menu label ^Ubuntu Minimal
        ipappend 2
        kernel ubuntu-installer-11.10/amd64/linux
        append initrd=ubuntu-installer-11.10/amd64/initrd.gz DEBCONF_DEBUG=5 ks=http://172.18.0.11/ks/ubuntu-minimal.cfg console=ttyS1,115200n8

** Attachment added: "kickstart file"
   https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/netcfg/+bug/848072/+attachment/2466023/+files/ubuntu-minimal.cfg

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/848072

Title:
  [oneiric] net-installer dhcp client fails with a DHCPDECLINE

Status in “netcfg” package in Ubuntu:
  New

Bug description:
  Installing recent oneiric builds via the net installer images fails.  The first dhcp request to fetch the pxe boot image succeeds, as does the second before fetching a kickstart file.  
  The third and final time, however, fails with the client rejecting the lease with a DHCPDECLINE, repeating this over and over again.

  I first started seeing this problem somewhere after the alpha-3
  installer image, though I'm not sure exactly where.  The
  20101020ubuntu63 installer build fails.

  Tracing through /sbin/dhclient-script it looks like the call in
  BOUND|RENEW|REBIND|REBOOT) where it calls 'ip -4 addr add [..]' was
  failing with a File Exists response.  The old and new settings
  appeared identical, however.

  I managed to work around this by adding an unconditional call to 'ip
  -4 addr flush dev $interface' in /sbin/dhclient-script right after the
  call to set_hostname.  With this workaround, all proceeds as expected,
  though I'm not sure what the underlying problem is.

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