Neoware 3000
I’ve finally got the Neoware box to actually do something (that it was not designed for). I managed to get it booting over PXE. I set up the network boot options on my Smoothwall box, pointing to a TFTP server on my laptop running XP. This didn’t quite work at first – the Neoware managed to get an IP address, and it was also confirming the IP address of the TFTP server, but wouldn’t load any files from it. So I installed the aftp mod for Smoothwall, copied the boot files over, and it worked like a charm. I reckon that although the PXE client was detecting the next-server option from the DHCP server, it wasn’t actually using it, and just tried to access a TFTP server on the DHCP server’s address – this is probably due to a fault in the firmware for the RTL8139 on board ethernet chipset, although I wouldn’t like to say for certain.
Now all I have to work out is why the Debian Etch installer is failing when its trying to partition the hard drive. I thought it was the drive itself at first (its untested) but it fails at the same place with another drive.
Smoothwall Hardware.
Smoothwall is working quite well on my network. Still haven’t got those power figures for you yet, but i’ll sort them soon. May have to borrow the current clamp from work.
Here’s the hardware list, for those of you that care :
| Address |
Type |
Device |
| 00:00.0 |
Host bridge |
VIA Technologies, Inc. CN700/VN800/P4M800CE/Pro Host Bridge |
| 00:00.1 |
Host bridge |
VIA Technologies, Inc. CN700/VN800/P4M800CE/Pro Host Bridge |
| 00:00.2 |
Host bridge |
VIA Technologies, Inc. CN700/VN800/P4M800CE/Pro Host Bridge |
| 00:00.3 |
Host bridge |
VIA Technologies, Inc. PT890 Host Bridge |
| 00:00.4 |
Host bridge |
VIA Technologies, Inc. CN700/VN800/P4M800CE/Pro Host Bridge |
| 00:00.7 |
Host bridge |
VIA Technologies, Inc. CN700/VN800/P4M800CE/Pro Host Bridge |
| 00:01.0 |
PCI bridge |
VIA Technologies, Inc. VT8237 PCI Bridge |
| 00:09.0 |
Ethernet controller |
National Semiconductor Corporation DP83815 (MacPhyter) Ethernet Controller |
| 00:0f.0 |
IDE interface |
VIA Technologies, Inc. VIA VT6420 SATA RAID Controller (rev 80) |
| 00:0f.1 |
IDE interface |
VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82C586A/B/VT82C686/A/B/VT823x/A/C PIPC Bus Master IDE (rev 06) |
| 00:10.0 |
USB Controller |
VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82xxxxx UHCI USB 1.1 Controller (rev 81) |
| 00:10.1 |
USB Controller |
VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82xxxxx UHCI USB 1.1 Controller (rev 81) |
| 00:10.2 |
USB Controller |
VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82xxxxx UHCI USB 1.1 Controller (rev 81) |
| 00:10.3 |
USB Controller |
VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82xxxxx UHCI USB 1.1 Controller (rev 81) |
| 00:10.4 |
USB Controller |
VIA Technologies, Inc. USB 2.0 (rev 86) |
| 00:11.0 |
ISA bridge |
VIA Technologies, Inc. VT8237 ISA bridge [KT600/K8T800/K8T890 South] |
| 00:11.5 |
Multimedia audio controller |
VIA Technologies, Inc. VT8233/A/8235/8237 AC97 Audio Controller (rev 60) |
| 00:12.0 |
Ethernet controller |
VIA Technologies, Inc. VT6102 [Rhine-II] (rev 78) |
| 01:00.0 |
VGA compatible controller |
VIA Technologies, Inc. UniChrome Pro IGP (rev 01) |
And the entry from my.smoothwall :
| Express Version |
3.0-polar-i386- |
| CPU Vendor |
CentaurHauls |
| CPU Model |
VIA Esther processor 1500MHz |
| CPU Speed |
1497 Mhz |
| Memory |
441 Mb |
| Disk |
37.3 Gb |
| Network Config |
GREEN + RED |
| Connection Type |
Ethernet |
| Last Seen IP |
62.31.***.*** on 6th August 2009 21:39:48 |
| Registered On |
6th August 2009 20:56:13 with IP 62.31.***.*** |
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