[Balug-talk] tftp

[Paul Mackinney]

Jonathan Jefferies declaimed:
> Hello,
> 
> I have a situation in which I need to download
> via trivial ftp (tftp) a file to a singleboard
> embedded target from my linux box over ethernet. The
> net connection  is up and running - I can ping
> the linux box from the target board. The RedHat
> tftp-server-0.29-3, is installed
> 
> The system is RedHat 8.0 with KDE as the window manager.
> 
> Startup: I used RedHat's "Service Configuration"
> tool to turn tftp on and rebooted linux - the Service
> Configuration tool indicating that there is no other
> way to start it. I have also tried starting it by
> hand, "in.tftpd -l"
> 
> Still the standalone target board isn't able to connect
> and get the linux box to pass over the file via tftp.
> The manufacturer assures me that the standalone
> tftp client works.
> 
> 1. Any suggestions on the startup, care and feeding
>    of the linux tftp server?
> 2. Anyway of determining if the server is running?
>    "ps" does not find it listed.
> 2. My second machine is running windows 98, any
>    suggestions as to a downloadable tftp client for
>    windows that could be used to test the linux tftp server?
> 
> Other comments suggestions welcomed.
> 
> J.
> 

No quick fix, sorry, but some general thoughts:

1. Red Hat likes to use xinetd to start network services on demand in
stead of maintaining active processes all the time. This could explain
the output of your "ps" command ('ps aux' is my favorite ps invocation).
Look in the file xinetd.conf and in the directory xinet.d (in the /etc
directory, working from memory but the names should be similar) for a
reference to tftp.

2. Simplify by limiting your tests to a single machine until it's
working: Install both the tftp server and client to your Red Hat system
and get the machine to connect to itself and transfer files. Until
you can do this, it's unlikely that a transfer from a different system
will work.

3. Start the server, try to connect, and then inspect likely files in
/var/log for useful messages.

HTH, Paul
-- 
Paul Mackinney
paul at mackinney.net