Microsoft Surface Pro 4 (using dock) has Issues with DHCP for Imaging Task

[Wayne Workman]

@george1421 Wouldn’t downgrading the kernel work in this case?

[Dahrell]

Yeah I can test if using 4.10 for the dock will work as well.

[Dahrell]

It still won’t get to PXE. I think any non-Microsoft USB peripherals or USB Bootable devices are being ignored on boot? Maybe the updated UEFI firmware has changed the behavior of what peripherals are usable at boot. Once I get to the section where it asks me to replug the generic USB adapter and I move the ethernet over to it, it works on 4.15.2. I tried Kernel Versions 4.10.1 and 4.10.10 with the dock and the adapter by itself but still no success.

[george1421]

@dahrell Sorry I’ve been looking at other issues.

I was able to get a generic USB ethernet adapter to work once FOS was booted. But that won’t help you since it will have another mac address. Using a down level kernel might work, you can assign that kernel to that specific bit of hardware via the host configuration page. I was just looking but I can’t seem to find old FOS kernels in the 4.10 era. I know they exist, I just can’t locate them at the moment. Plus there is no guaranty that they will include the driver for this bit-o-dock. The right solution is for the linux kernel developers to fix the code to support these things.

For you to use a third party network adapter to pxe boot, you may find no joy there either. The UEFI firmware has to have the drive built in to support pxe booting. I don’t suspect that M$ will include any drivers in the uefi firmware other than their own hardware.

Lastly you could always usb boot into FOS using the FOS USB stick. Its not an ideal situation, but it would bypass pxe booting by booting FOS off the usb stick (as I did in my testing). Then all you need to have is a FOS supported usb ethernet adapter to image.

[Dahrell]

Yeah they’re forcing only Microsoft PXE devices on Surfaces.

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/surface/ethernet-adapters-and-surface-device-deployment

"Booting from the network (PXE boot) is only supported when you use an Ethernet adapter or docking station from Microsoft. To boot from the network, the chipset in the Ethernet adapter or dock must be detected and configured as a boot device in the firmware of the Surface device. Microsoft Ethernet adapters, such as the Surface Ethernet Adapter and the Surface Dock use a chipset that is compatible with the Surface firmware.

The following Ethernet devices are supported for network boot with Surface devices:

Surface USB to Ethernet adapter

Surface USB 3.0 Ethernet adapter

Surface Dock

Surface 3 Docking Station

Surface Pro 3 Docking Station

Docking Station for Surface Pro and Surface Pro 2

Third-party Ethernet adapters are also supported for network deployment, although they do not support PXE boot."

[Wayne Workman]

@george1421 said in Microsoft Surface Pro 4 (using dock) has Issues with DHCP for Imaging Task:

The right solution is for the linux kernel developers to fix the code to support these things.

Or for Microsoft to make a pull request to the Linux kernel with the fixes for their hardware. That’d be the responsible thing to do on Microsoft’s part.

[george1421]

@wayne-workman said in Microsoft Surface Pro 4 (using dock) has Issues with DHCP for Imaging Task:

That’d be the responsible thing to do on Microsoft’s part.

[snark on] But why, there is no profit in that. Fixing linux does not push their crappy windows 10 agenda at all. [snark off]

[george1421]

FWIW: You can get older FOG Project created kernels from this URL: https://fogproject.org/kernels/

[Dahrell]

Verified today that it does indeed require the Microsoft Ethernet Adapter on Surface Pro 4 and that it works with a Kernel Argument of has_usb_nic = 1 and Host Kernel of bzImage version 4.13.4! You have to create a host in the FOG Web Interface with the MAC of the adapter. Make sure the dock is removed before booting. When it prompts to remove the usb and replug leave the adapter in. Do not remove and hit ENTER.

Thanks again for your help previously!

[m144]

@dahrell I know the pain!

The same thing happened to me when trying to use that docking station for the Surface Pro. The thing I don’t understand is that docking station will work for me when imaging a Surface Book but not a Surface Pro.

I ended up just using this surface docking station and it works every time with the newest kernel… Even tho it says it is for the Surface Pro 3 it did work with our 4’s.

Good luck,
-M144

[grenfell]

Hi.

I’ve also had problems doing “deploy” image to a Microsoft Surface Pro 4 however I accidentally stumbled upon a workaround of connecting two (2) network interfaces to the Surface Pro 4 as a solution. I connect the Surface Pro 4 to the “Dock” (part # PF3-00005) which is connected to our Ethernet LAN and I also plug a Surface Ethernet Network adapter (part # EJS-00002) into the Surface’s USB3 port. Yes, I know it is silly to connect two Ethernet interfaces to the surface however for whatever reason this allows the “Deploy” to work successfully.

HERE’S DETAILS ABOUT OUR ENVIRONMENT

FOG server version: 1.4.4 (note on 4/3/2018 I see that “Latest stable version is 1.5.0”)

I used the 'Windows 2012 R2" steps at https://wiki.fogproject.org/wiki/index.php?title=BIOS_and_UEFI_Co-Existence#Using_Windows_Server_2012_.28R1_and_later.29_DHCP_Policy to configure our DHCP option “067 Bootfile Name” to ipxe7156.efi (not ipxe.efi)

After I unbox a new Surface Pro 4 I do the following …

1. Manually add a “hosts” record for the new Surface Pro 4 to FOG
   a. Open the box with the “Dock” and write down the Dock’s Ethernet MAC address (which is in very tiny light print)
   b. From FOG’s “Hosts” menu click “Create New Host”
   c. Fill in the following form options:
   i. “Host Name” = “pc_surface03” (or something suitable)
   ii. “Primary MAC” = whatever is written on the “Dock” (we assign one dock specifically to each surface because the DOC’s Ethernet MAC address is the key field for FOG host identification)
   iii. “Host Image” = select UEFI image form the list
   iv. “Host Kernel Arguments” = “has_usb_nic = 1”
   v. Scroll down and under the “Active Directory” section check the box for “Join domain after image task”
   vi. Scroll down to the bottom and click the “Add” button

2. Plug the Dock’s power brick into a wall outlet

3. Connect the Dock’s power brick to the dock

4. Connect an Ethernet cable to the Dock’s Ethernet port

5. Connect the Dock to the Surface Pro 4

6. Plug a Surface Ethernet Network adapter (part # EJS-00002) into the Surface’s USB3 port

7. Connect the Surface Ethernet Network adapter (part # EJS-00002) to our LAN

8. Now we PXE boot the Surface Pro 4 for the first time with the following steps:
   a. Hold in [volume-up] and tap the power button
   b. When “Surface” appears on the screen release [volume-up]
   c. Touch “Security” on the left
   d. In the “Secure Boot” touch “Change Configuration” button
   e. Touch “None” and then touch the “OK” button
   f. Touch “Boot Configuration” on the left
   g. Change “Enable IPv6 for PXE Network boot option” option to “Off”
   h. Drag the “PXE Network” item to the left
   i. When it asks “Boot this device immediately” touch “OK” button
   j. When the FOG menu appears you will see the heading “Host is registered as lap_surface03” (or whatever name you manually registered it as)

9. Now we deploy our image
   a. Choose “Deploy Image”
   b. Login to FOG
   c. Select the OOBE image you want to deploy
   d. Wait 2 minutes for the image to be deployed
   e. Even though the image was deployed successfully the deployment “task” remains running forever on the FOG server, so in your web browser (on another PC) navigate to FOG’s “Task Management” page, check the box next to the deployment task that has finished and click the “Cancel selected tasks?” button

I hope the above information is useful to someone else.

[x23piracy]

Hi,

for all the surface cramp i always used this one with success without any special settings:
https://www.amazon.com/Microsoft-3U4-00001-Surface-Ethernet-Adapter/dp/B00N3JHBFM
There is also another one, but i can just talk for the one with the skewed usb sheating. I don’t know if the other one has the same interiority:
https://www.amazon.com/Surface-USB-Gigabit-Ethernet-Adapter/dp/B06ZZNPHQX

Regards X23