Troubleshoot TFTP

Testing TFTP

Create a file named test.txt with some content in /tftpboot path of the tftp server

sudo echo "Is my TFTP service working?" > /tftpboot/test.txt

Try to get the file with Linux:

tftp x.x.x.x
tftp> get test.txt
//Sent 159 bytes in 0.0 seconds
tftp> quit
cat test.txt

Try to get the file with Windows:

tftp x.x.x.x get test.txt

TFTP Service

Fedora 20/21

Newer systems:

status/enable/start

systemctl status xinetd.service
systemctl enable xinetd.service
systemctl start xinetd.service

Ubuntu

newer systems:

status/enable/start

sudo service xinetd status
sudo service xinetd restart
sudo service xinetd enable

older systems:

sudo /etc/init.d/xinetd status
sudo /etc/init.d/xinetd restart
sudo /etc/init.d/xinetd enable

Troubleshooting TFTP

To test from windows, TFTP Client must be installed and the Firewall must allow TFTP Traffic.

Control Panel -> Programs and Features -> Turn Windows Features on or off -> TFTP Client

Checking/verifying Firewall

Disable & Stop Firewall in Fedora 20/21

systemctl disable firewalld.service

systemctl stop firewalld.service

Can be undone with "start" and "enable".

Check Firewall in Fedora 20/21

systemctl status firewalld.service

Fedora 16

Add /bin/bash to /etc/shells as the vsftpd yum install does not do it correctly causing tftp timeout message

Check Firewall in Debian/Ubuntu

sudo iptables -L

If disabled, the output should look like this:

Chain INPUT (policy ACCEPT)
target prot opt source destination 

Chain FORWARD (policy ACCEPT)
target prot opt source destination 

Chain OUTPUT (policy ACCEPT)
target prot opt source destination

Disable Ubuntu Firewall

sudo ufw disable

Disable Debian Firewall

iptables -F
iptables -X
iptables -t nat -F
iptables -t nat -X
iptables -t mangle -F
iptables -t mangle -X
iptables -P INPUT ACCEPT
iptables -P OUTPUT ACCEPT
iptables -P FORWARD ACCEPT

Temporarily disable Windows firewall

Permissions

Check permissions on /tftpboot directory by using:

ls -ld /tftpboot

Check permissions on files in /tftpboot directory by using:

ls -ld /tftpboot/*.*

Set permissions to allow everyone full access to /tftpboot and all contents:

chmod -R 777 /tftpboot

See example permissions below: