open 3.2, pxeboot install

[Robert Drake <rdrake_(_at_)_ipsek_(_dot_)_net>]

We're using openbsd 3.2 (I know, old..) right now as a firewall platform
in the field (about 180 boxes we're still maintaining)

When we do a new install we ethier use a CD or PXE depending on what
type of machine it is.  Our old process for install was a CD or PXE
setup that would boot FreeBSD and dd an image of an OpenBSD disk onto
the drive.  As far as I know this was done because nobody knew how to
make a bootable OpenBSD disk.

Now we have a bootable install disk that works great, but when we tried to
adapt it to the PXE environment we had serious problems.

When we tried the install it said this:



fdisk: sysctl(machdep.bios.diskinfo): Device not configured
# using MBR partition 3: type A6 off 63 (0x3f) size 16514001 (0xfbfbd1)
disklabel: Can't get bios geometry: Device not configured

However, during the bootup the kernel displays this: 

wd0: 16-sector PIO, LBA, 19092MB, 16383 cyl, 16 head, 63 sec, 39102336
sectors

So it sees the geometry of the drive at one point, then later forgets
about it.  

It wouldn't be so frustrating, but this is the exact same kernel used on
our CD install disk with just one line changed:

config bsd root on cd0c

gets changed to:

config bsd root on rd0a

If I try booting the Openbsd ramdisk kernel via PXE (bsd.rd) it does the
same thing. 

I could probably parse the correct info out of dmesg then feed it into
disklabel, but that might be too much stuff for the little ramdrive to
handle.  (have to add awk or cut, both would require libc)

Has anyone else encountered this and come up with a cool solution?  If
none of this would work right, is it possible to build a 3.5 kernel and
have it install a 3.2 kernel?  

Thanks,
Robert