Kickstart problems: network install fails

[Chong Yu Meng]

Hi all,

I'm trying out a kickstart install with the kickstart configuration file
and the repository for the installation files hosted on a web server.
I'm not having much success right now -- the client machine is able to
grab the kickstart configuration file from the web server, but then the
process terminates with an error "Unable to retrieve" followed by the
URL of the web server. I did a tail on the web server's access and error
logs, and it appears as if the client machine does not even issue a
request to the web server! No 404 error, no incoming request at all.

This is strange because in the logs I can see that the client machine
was able to grab the kickstart configuration file, which leads me to
think that it is unlikely to be a network issue. Googling this problem
only brought up one hit that seemed to describe my problem: a forum
entry that was received no replies. 

There is one (very remote) possibility it could be a driver problem: the
client machine has a dual port Broadcom Gigabit NIC integrated into the
mainboard. I disabled one of the ports in the BIOS, but I found a
strange thing: both ports actually share the same MAC address! 

Has anyone else seen this before? I'm using Scientific Linux 4.4 and the
hardware is a IBM x306m 1U rackmount server. 

Thanks in Advance !

Regards,
pascal chong