Netboot not working

[mqh777]

I have a Mac mini running Mountain Lion 10.8.2. I reboot this machine holding down the "N" key. It starts and I see the Globe icon. Then, after a minute or two it just boots up regular and I see my standard log in screen asking me to enter my Administrator password.

What causes this? I know this machine is on the network since once I log in I can apple-K and connect to other machines and I can get onto the Internet.

[ImAMacGuy]

same subnet? is the netboot enabled? do you have a netboot for the mac mini specifically?

[mqh777]

No, totally different subnet. If I were on the same subnet as our JSS x-Server then yes, it does work. and how do I check to see if the Netboot is enabled on my Mac Mini?

[gregp]

Do you have the IP helper config set up on the routers?

[mqh777]

Hi, I don't know about the routers.... I'll ask around.

[Chris_Hafner]

netbooting across subnets is, not tricky, but not all together completely simple. Here are two good threads to help you.

https://jamfnation.jamfsoftware.com/discussion.html?id=5835

http://derflounder.wordpress.com/2011/12/08/netbooting-across-subnets/

[Jpcorzo]

Question for you guys on this thread... we have been experiencing that once a week we are no longer able to launch our netboot images from any device. I have restarted the netboot service a few times but whenever i click on a bootable netboot it just goes straight to the login screen. Any troubleshooting that you guys may be aware of?

Thanks

[Chris_Hafner]

Could you be slightly more specific? It seems like you're saying you HAVE been having the problem once a week and now it's constantly not working. Does that sounds correct? Do you have any of the NetBoot and DHCP/BOOTP logs? Also, how is your netboot server setup?

[Jpcorzo]

sorry i wasn't very specific..

Our JSS server works as the Netboot server as well. We've been able to image devices without problem all week long. But last thursday we experienced that in the afternoon we couldn't launch the netboot image. Friday it was back to normal and pretty much worked all week long until today again we are currently not able to launch the netboot image. The service is running and we are able to see it from the bootable drives menu and startup disk too, but once we click on it, it just goes straight to the login screen.

[Chris_Hafner]

No problem. Can you post a quick log from your netboot server? Also... stupid question. Have you tried rebooting your Netboot/JSS server? I don't know you're level of experience so please don't take offense. I've seen Mac servers with little free space choke on shadow volumes when imaging diskless.

[Jpcorzo]

Chris, it all came down to our recent discovery that the battery on the RAID card keeps discharging which completely stops the cache writing, affecting all processes through the JSS. Hopefully once we replace the battery we won't be seeing this issue anymore.
By the way, i had restarted both the netboot service and the server as well with no luck :)

Thanks again

[Chris_Hafner]

Nice.