[Bug 1004448] [NEW] installer configures dhcp on wrong network port

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I have many onboard dual port servers. In the BIOS, in netboot settings,
and OS I boot on these machines clearly shows the left port as the first
port (eg eth0 in Linux, igb0 in FreeBSD).

The root cause of my problem:
However, when using the PXE netboot Ubuntu installer, the second network port is eth0. Hitting alt+f2 and then "ip link" shows the mac addresses reversed. (Perhaps this is BusyBox's fault)

I have tried this in Ubuntu 11 and 12, both having the same problem.

I have 2 or 3 similar boards that do the same thing (in total, 74
servers affected). I also tried this in VirtualBox with 2 network cards
configured, and it does the same thing. So I am guessing it is either
all Ubuntu or all netboots, not just my hardware. (And since it is
easily reproduced in VirtualBox, you should be able to fix it.

The problem:
When doing an automated unattended install, the installer wants to use DHCP to configure "eth0" which is not the true first network port, and if it fails, it gives up, and does not try "eth1" which is the true first network port.

So what I need to do is plug both network ports in to install the
servers, and then move the network wiring around later. This is a huge
hassle, and causes huge problems, especially when installing things
remotely.

Another possible workaround is to put the preseed file in the initrd
image instead of the web server. This isn't completely terrible, but
still sucks.

I downloaded the netboot images like this:
        sudo lftp -c "open http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/oneiric/main/installer-amd64/current/images/netboot/;; mirror"
        sudo lftp -c "open http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/precise/main/installer-amd64/current/images/netboot/;; mirror"

I am using "txt.cfg" rather than "menu.cfg", set in pxelinux.cfg/default

In txt.cfg, I added the following:
append preseed/url=http://10.10.10.10/netboot/myseed.seed vga=normal initrd=ubuntu-installer/amd64/initrd.gz ks=http://10.10.0.100/netboot/ks.cfg -- quiet

The solution:
Either:
a) when DHCP fails, the default behavior should be to try other ports (simple and flexible, doesn't depend on fixing BusyBox or wherever the true root cause is).
b) make the installer networking recognize the ports in the correct order (a technically more correct solution, but maybe the problem would still occur on some hardware and not others)

** Affects: debian-installer (Ubuntu)
     Importance: Undecided
         Status: New


** Tags: bot-comment
-- 
installer configures dhcp on wrong network port
https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1004448
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