Hello,

All of my ethernet connections go through an old Cisco switch I have. It
takes just over 30 seconds to assign an IP address, and this can cause
problems with programs that completely fail if DHCP isn't quick enough.
For example, I always have to retry network autoconfiguration in the
Debian Installer because it gives up before the switch is done.

I have PXE boot set up for easy netbooting of many different operating
systems, and it works very well, except for the fact that I need to add
boot parameters such as rd.net.timeout.dhcp=40 (dracut example) to give
the switch more time to set up the network before failing to boot.

I recently discovered the excellent work done here in the Debian Live
images, and decided to add one to my PXE by booting its kernel and
initrd with the fetch= boot parameter for the filesystem.squashfs.
Upon attempting to boot it, everything worked fine until it tried to
initialize the network, giving up after 15 seconds. I did a lot of
research to see how I could increase the timeout, but couldn't find any
useful information.

It would be helpful if a boot parameter could be added that sets the
length of time dhclient waits until giving up. Another solution would be
one that sets a number of retries.

Thanks,
--
Ben Westover