PXE boot issues with an LG 15Z980

jlad00

Hi,

Trying to PXE boot an LG 15Z980-R.AAS9U1 laptop using a USB-C multiport adapter with no luck. This: https://www.juicedsystems.com/BizHUB--USB-C-Multiport-Gigabit-HDMI-Hub_p_46.html

I am presented with boot options for IPv4 and IPv6 but it will not get past the PXE boot screen after selecting the boot device.

UEFI is enabled (turning it off results in no USB boot options). Legacy OS boot support is enabled also. Secure boot is disabled.

FOG version is 1.5.4
Kernel was just updated to 4.17.0

I have also tried an Amazon USB 3 adapter with no luck. But admittedly, I have had little luck with those adapters on several other model laptops. I usually cannot even get the boot options to show using this adapter. https://www.amazon.com/AmazonBasics-1000-Gigabit-Ethernet-Adapter/dp/B00M77HMU0/ref=asc_df_B00M77HMU0/?tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=167140037427&hvpos=1o1&hvnetw=g&hvrand=1777576043055726332&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9031287&hvtargid=pla-195027879195&psc=1

Any suggestions and guidance is appreciated.

george1421

@jlad00 Well I can say, with uefi, the network adapter has to be supported by the firmware since the uefi fimware is a bit more like an OS than what we would consider bios. If the network adapter is supported it should boot.

I can tell you I was working with a Dell 7280 over the noon hour today. It has an onboard ethernet adapter and an ethernet adapter on the Dell USB-C dock. When we went to PXE boot it showed both network adapters as possible uefi boot sources.

Now back on point, one might think if you are presented with the boot options for ipv4 then the firmware should see the network adapter in the dock. Now we can do a few things here to find out what is going on. My initial reaction is you might have a networking issue, or the network adapter is not supported by the firmware.

If you take a computer with wireshark loaded on it and plug it into the same subnet as your pxe booting computer. In wireshark use the following capture filter port 67 or port 68. Hopefully when you attempt to pxe boot your target computer wireshark will capture the dhcp discover packets from your target computer. If your seeing the discover packets then your computer IS talking on the network. Then we need to identify why the next part is failing.

ref: https://forums.fogproject.org/topic/9673/when-dhcp-pxe-booting-process-goes-bad-and-you-have-no-clue

Sebastian Roth

@jlad00 Just want to add two notes to George’s great post. First I would state that a driver in the firmware is needed for PXE booting off an USB network adapter. There is no difference between UEFI and legacy BIOS, either it has the specific driver included or not. Unfortunately there is hardly any information provided from the manufacturer or firmware guys. Read the first paragraphs of one of John’s Blog posts, he’s great at explaining this. Here is one and I think there are more on bis site: http://www.johnwillis.com/2014/03/pxe-booting-using-usb-to-ethernet-dongle.html

And second I would ask you to take a picture of where exactly it hangs on the boot cycle. Possibly we see something useful on the picture that could lead us on where to look and what to try next.

jlad00

Thank you both for your responses. I believe you are correct re: the firmware not supporting the adapters I’ve tried. Some further research led me to a proprietary ethernet adapter that is supposed to come with this model laptop from LG. I’m thinking the best bet is to track one of those down somehow.

jlad00

Ok, so I’ve acquired the LG ethernet adapter for this laptop but am having issues still. I am presented with the USB IPv4 boot options but after selecting I get:

Start PXE over IPv4
Station IP address is (DHCP IP it’s pulling)
Server IP address is (correct FOG server IP)
NBP filename is undionly.kpxe
NBP filesize is 97003 Bytes
Downloading NBP file…

Succeed to download NBP file

But then just kicks back to the boot options.

I’ve seen this before and believe I remedied it by toggling UEFI boot to Legacy boot first, but this BIOS is a bit different in that UEFI is an enable/disable toggle separate from a Legacy OS Boot toggle enable/disable. Disabling UEFI always results in losing the USB boot options altogether.

Sebastian Roth

@jlad00 said in PXE boot issues with an LG 15Z980:

Start PXE over IPv4
…
NBP filename is undionly.kpxe

There is the issue. The first line tells me that your client is set to boot in UEFI mode but the later shows undionly.kpxe which is the binary for legacy BIOS machines. What is serving DHCP in your environment?

Take a look at this: https://wiki.fogproject.org/wiki/index.php?title=BIOS_and_UEFI_Co-Existence