Hyper V and Pxe boot to Fog problems

[george1421]

@paulman9 Well I seemed to have forgot about this too.

Can you do one thing for me, when iPXE boots, the version you have. You will see a iPXE banner line. There is a hex code between two parenthesizes. Can you tell me the hex code on the version you are testing?

Also the developers just release 1.5.0 (stable) this week. That should have the latest version too. But again the hex code will tell us what version you have.

[Paulman9]

@george1421 I’m not positive, but I think I’m using the one pulled from Github right now. I assumed this to be the most reliable one as, well, I didn’t make it. I don’t think hyper-v gets far enough to show that

Though, On a working machine, it shows iPXE 1.0.0+ (47849).

[george1421]

@paulman9 said in Hyper V and Pxe boot to Fog problems:

iPXE 1.0.0+ (47849)

This is the number I was looking for. OK going to the rom-o-matic site, if you scroll down to the bottom (after picking .kpxe) there is a which version section, and the default is master, if you pick the drop down the top entry is 47849, so that is the latest version.

So the question is why did the ipxe file I created work?? All I did, was picke .kpxe file type and pasted in the ipxe script and hit proceed button. What in 1.5.0 stable appears to be the same release.

I just looked at the ipxe kernel in my google drive and its 546dd (a previous version)

[Paulman9]

@george1421 Strangely enough, it seems making an image in standard mode on rom-o-matic, results in a much smaller image than creating in advanced mode (even if you change nothing.) Space disparity aside, creating in standard mode as you did boots on hyper-v, however you cannot configure the fog needed options. Creating in advanced mode (at least using no combination of options I chose, even default) results in failure on hyper-v. Any idea what is different between these two modes?

[Sebastian Roth]

@Paulman9 This sounds interesting. I don’t have access to my dev env right now but I can have a look later today.

[Sebastian Roth]

@paulman9 Ok, from what I can gather it seems like selecting the advanced mode you always get a full blown ipxe.kpxe binary with all the native iPXE drivers included even “Choose a NIC type” is set to “undionly”. I will ask the iPXE people about this. For now you are probably best of compiling your own binaries using this make command: make bin/undionly.kpxe EMBED=ipxescript

[Sebastian Roth]

Ok, got an update here. The issue has been reported already: https://github.com/xbgmsharp/ipxe-buildweb/issues/49 - but no response yet.

[Paulman9]

@sebastian-roth I appreciate your help, and that does answer my question. For the record, though, the problem remains. Building from source using the fog provided (GitHub dev-branch pulled) console.h, general.h, and settings.h gives the same failure in hyper-v. Building from source, and only including ipxescript (not replacing the 3 files above) results in a undionly.kpxe that does work past initializing devices in hyper-v. I’m going through each option now to try to narrow it down as it seems now something in the config is what is tripping up hyper-v.

Edit: Modified the default ipxe general.h file to include param_cmd, and changed nothing else. Completed downloading an image to my vm on hyper-v. Unsure what I broke in the process, as there are a lot of switches I’m missing, but I can confirm this works on my setup.

[Paulman9]

After going though the differences one by one, I have narrowed it down to three switches that will cause the hang in hyper-v.
#define DOWNLOAD_PROTO_HTTPS
#define IMAGE_TRUST_CMD
#define CERT_CMD
Comment out those lines from the general.h (I used the files from dev-branch on GitHub, if they differ from master, then that might cause additional issues, didn’t check) and the current build (47849) of ipxe works in hyper-v. Would probably fix older versions too, but I don’t see any reason to downgrade as everything is working so far. Unsure how these are even affecting hyper-v at such an early state, but all I know is mine works with no other changes than that. Hope this helps someone make sense of this issue, or at least get around this if they are affected. Again, thanks for everyone’s help with this.

[george1421]

@paulman9 said in Hyper V and Pxe boot to Fog problems:

IMAGE_TRUST_CMD

Interesting these all deal with certificates. As long as you are not doing anything with https on your FOG server, what you built should work OK.

This makes me wonder if the certificates may be related to secure boot being enabled on this win10 host system? I’m only guessing (TBH) but just trying to correlate why an upgrade to 1709 and certificates/image verify would be related. BUT this is excellent info to take back to the iPXE guys. I’m sure they will see this more often than the FOG project.

[Paulman9]

@george1421 We are BIOS booting these, I didn’t think secure boot should have a hand in it, but it sure doesn’t work with these switches, and strangely I believe the UEFI image works fine with a gen 2 1709 vm (at least with secure boot off.) We don’t use fog for our UEFI images yet so I’ve only tested it once. Only security related option I see in a gen 1 vm is for key storage drives, and we aren’t using that. Anyway, if there is anything you would like me to test for this, just let me know. Otherwise, it seems we are good to go.

Edit: Rebooted to verify, Secure boot is off on the host I was testing on

[Sebastian Roth]

@Paulman9 I think I am at a loss here although I have played with iPXE and dug through the code a fair bit over the years. You might want to post this in the iPXE forums (see their website).

[sudburr]

What version Hyper-V are you running?
What is the precise building of your virtual machine (prior to installing your OS)?

EG: My setup is on Server 2016 Standard with Hyper-V role

Virtual Machine Generation 1

• 4 Processors
• Memory Startup RAM 4096 MB (NO Dynamic Memory)
• Network Adapter (Not Connected)
• Delete SCSI controller
• Boot Order = CD, IDE, Legacy Network Adapter
• VHDX, (1024 GiB), Dynamic
• Secure Boot Disabled
• Standard Checkpoints
• Automatic Start Action (nothing)

Virtual Machine Generation 2

• 4 Processors
• Memory Startup RAM 4096 MB ( NO Dynamic Memory)
• Network Adapter (Not Connected)
• Boot Order = DVD Drive, File, Hard Drive, Network Adapter
• VHDX, (1024 GiB), Dynamic
• Secure Boot Disabled
• Standard Checkpoints
• Automatic Start Action (nothing)

Then I install the OS… I don’t connect the network adapter until after entering audit mode.

When it comes time to capture the machine, after it’s shutdown I do this.

Gen1.
ADD Legacy Network Adapter with Virtual Switch to CONNECTED
SET Network Adapter Virtual Switch to CONNECTED
SET BIOS to Boot from Legacy Network Adapter

Gen2.
SET Network Adapter Virtual Switch to CONNECTED
SET BIOS to Boot from Network Adapter

Then capture.

[george1421]

@sudburr The issue (as I understand it) is where he’s running hyper-v on top of Windows 10 1709. Where in Windows 10 1703 iPXE booted correctly, and now it doesn’t. As I’ve said before, while Win10 1709 flies the Win10 banner, it is very different operating system under the hood than is 1703.

[Paulman9]

@sudburr Yes, as George said, we are building images on windows 10 (now 1709). We don’t currently have a server running server 2016 so I am unsure if it would behave any differently. I assume if server 2016 is not already affected by the same issue, it will be soon, but this could be helpful to some to know for sure.

[sudburr]

There is also the option of running the free Microsoft Windows Server 2016 Hyper-V Core (10.0.14393.0) as your hypervisor.

Okay, since I misinterpreted (ie: skimmed ) the OP, I will see what I can reproduce with Windows 10v1709 as the hypervisor.

[sudburr]

Alrighty then. Hyper-V running on Windows 10v1709.
Gen2 (UEFI) can network boot ipxe.efi just dandily and image.
Gen1 (Legacy) can network boot with undionly.kpxe but sits indefinitely at iPXE initialising devices…

hmm …

• hangs after “GATEWAY IP:”
  default.ipxe

• hangs after “iPXE initialising devices…”
  intel.kkpxe
  intel.kpxe
  intel.pxe
  realtek.kkpxe
  realtek.kpxe
  realtek.pxe
  undionly.kkpxe
  undionly.kpxe
  unidonly.pxe

• hangs after “WARNING: Using legacy NIC wrapper on”
  ipxe.kkpxe
  ipxe.kpxe
  ipxe.pxe

So all I have accomplished is to confirm the problem as a third party.

[sudburr]

Bad news everyone!

The same problem exists also in Windows Server Insider Preview build 17093.

[Sebastian Roth]

@sudburr Thanks heaps for testing this and letting us know!!

@paulman9 said in Hyper V and Pxe boot to Fog problems:

#define DOWNLOAD_PROTO_HTTPS
#define IMAGE_TRUST_CMD
#define CERT_CMD

Would you be able to break this further down? Are you able to compile a binary without IMAGE_TRUST_CMD and CERT_CMD? Should work I think as those are only commands added to the iPXE command line interface.

As well you might want to compile a debug binary: make bin/undionly.kpxe EMBED=ipxescript DEBUG=https to see if that gives us more information on where exactly it hangs.

[RobertD]

So glad I found this thread. I have been trying to figure out what was going on with our setup. We just upgraded to 1.5 stable and decided to begin building our images from VMs instead of physical machines, however we came across issues with Windows 10 (1709) hyper-v host and getting stuck at initializing devices. Should we move to a different hyper visor?