stopping dhcp on boot

Forum: Networking
Topic: stopping dhcp on boot
started by: rgs3542

Posted by rgs3542 on Feb. 10 2009,21:15

I'm doing a frugal grub install of DSL 4.2.3 onto a Wyse Terminal with a Compact Flash "drive." There are two NICs installed and the plan is to turn this thin client into a standalone "IP packet forwarder" -- a poor man's router -- to forward packets between networks.

I've tweaked the /opt/bootlocal.sh to configure the two NICs installed and start the packet forwarding. They seem to hold the configuration for about 25-30 seconds and then the configuration disappears.

I noted that when booting, DSL finds the NICs, invokes DHCP and immediately puts that invocation into "backgrounding" mode. My suspicion is that right after bootlocal.sh does the configuration (the 25-30 seconds), the backgrounded DHCP service completes unsuccessfully and dutifully strips the NICs of the their configuration.

Is there anyway to stop DSL from invoking DHCP on boot?

Posted by rgs3542 on Feb. 10 2009,22:26

I'm replying to myself. One of the CD boot options is "nodhcp" which does exactly that.

So I re-installed (frugal grub) and when the installation procedure prompted me for boot options, I entered "nodhcp" and "ssh" and completed the installation. I then added all the NIC configs, ip_forward and sshd commands into /opt/bootlocal.sh. I added a password for root and added /etc/shadow to the .filetool.lst.

Now she boots unattended, configures the NICs, starts sshd (so I can get into her should the need arise) and start forwarding packet immediately.

Posted by mikshaw on Feb. 11 2009,03:10

FYI, you didn't need to reinstall. Boot options for Grub in a frugal install can be changed just by editing /cdrom/boot/grub/menu.lst.

Optionally, Grub also allows you to temporarily edit your boot options for a given session: select the system you want to boot, press 'e' to edit, select the kernel line, press 'e' to edit, make changes, press 'enter' to accept changes, press 'b' to boot.

Posted by rgs3542 on Feb. 11 2009,15:42

Thanks for the advice. The reinstall takes all of 5 minutes so I wasn't wasting lots of time. The "packet forwarding device" has to be completely standalone. If the power dies, it dies. When power is restored, it comes back to life and starts up untouched by human hands. So it has to be configured correctly from the gitgo.

Love DSL and the DSL community.

Posted by Tobiaus on Feb. 12 2009,16:27

message removed