iPXE boot Lenovo m725s

[mcturnan87]

@Sebastian-Roth Understood, I’ll verify our use of spanning tree in our network (new guy here, trying to bring the joy of imaging :D)

Only one DHCP server in the building, pretty small office.

[mcturnan87]

Backed up original ipxe efi and downloaded one recommended. No change.

[george1421]

@mcturnan87 said in iPXE boot Lenovo m725s:

VEN_10EC&DEV_8168

That is one of those rotten realtek 8168 NIC adapters. I was looking into those about a month ago (already!!). If I remember right there was a change in the linux kernel around 4.10 where the linux kernel guys switched from a generic cdc driver to the realtek native driver. If I remember correctly the nic would init correctly but not communicate to the network. If we launched a debug install/deploy and then on FOS linux system look in the syslog there was an error regarding the init of that network adapter. I don’t happen to have a computer with that nic in it so I couldn’t debug it much more.

[Sebastian Roth]

@george1421 The boot doesn’t get to the Linux kernel. It fails in iPXE already. See the picture below.

[EduardoTSeoane]

I had that problem on some notebook models.
In my case was the boot file.

Changing the undionly.kkpxe that im using (on the standard boot files) by the realtek.kpxe it works.

Try the different boot files. Maybe some works.

Now my dnsmask and my isc dhcp deliver different file based on mac vendor bytes.

[george1421]

@Sebastian-Roth ok well dang, I assumed I saw the picture correctly. My mistake. (still may be an issue once we get past this).

As you said when we have issues here, its typically spanning-tree blocking the port.

[george1421]

@mcturnan87 said in iPXE boot Lenovo m725s:

sg100d-08

I looked at the specs for that sg100 and its supports 802.3az (green ethernet) so it may support spanning tree out of the box. Do you have a cheap unmanaged switch. Like a $20 amazon special?

[Sebastian Roth]

@EduardoTSeoane This is UEFI though.

@mcturnan87 You can try using realtek.efi instead of ipxe.efi…

[mcturnan87]

@george1421 Noted. We do have the same NIC in our laptops and they are getting to the FOG ok. Haven’t tried a registration or deploy yet but I do get to the menu. Finger crossed we don’t hit the wall because they are 8168s.

@EduardoTSeoane We’re in an UEFI ~only environment. There is still some legacy but we’re moving away from it. Thanks for the input thought!

@Sebastian-Roth Confirmed spanning tree on our main switch stack. Will segregate our imaging network and set up FOGs dhcp. I’ll check back in soon.

[george1421]

@mcturnan87 said in iPXE boot Lenovo m725s:

Confirmed spanning tree on our main switch stack

Spanning tree can and should be used on your network, you just need to enable one of the fast spanning tree protocols like rstp, mstp, fast-stp or what ever your switch mfg calls it.

The cheap-o switches don’t support spanning tree at all, so as a test for this we temporarily insert one of these cheap switches between the pxe booting computer and the building switch to test.

And as always, is the firmware up to date on this HP system?

Haven’t tried a registration or deploy yet but I do get to the menu.

The fog menu is managed by iPXE (where you currently have the issue), beyond that then its FOS Linux.

[mcturnan87]

@george1421 Set up an isolated network with just the FOG instance running DHCP, the workstation, and tried 3 different switches; the Cisco and Dlink I mentioned previously, as well as, a TPLink 6 port switch I found that appeared to be the ‘dumbest’ in the office. Received the same screen.

@Sebastian-Roth I tried realtek.efi, received same screen.

[george1421]

@mcturnan87 Ok, lets see if we can bypass iPXE and see if FOS Linux is happy with that network adapter. If FOS isn’t happy then debugging iPXE is a bit pointless.

The instructions are here: https://forums.fogproject.org/topic/7727/building-usb-booting-fos-image read all of the parts before you begin. Because of the way the forum works, the sections are not in contiguous order. Also look at the forum chat bubble for some additional hits.

The idea is to boot FOS Linux from a usb drive, which will bypass the need for iPXE. This is used sometimes for systems that have a broken UEFI boot loader.

[mcturnan87]

@george1421 thank you, this was actually going to be my next step. Appreciate you heading me off with some solid info to work with.

[Sebastian Roth]

@mcturnan87 said in iPXE boot Lenovo m725s:

We do have the same NIC in our laptops and they are getting to the FOG ok.

Just wanted to mention that same NIC model doesn’t mean same behavior per se. Quite often the NIC itself is a different minor version or has a different flash ROM version. As well UEFI firmware is playing a major roll here. Different firmwares can mean different behaviors. See if there is a UEFI firmware upgrade for your machines.

[mcturnan87]

@Sebastian-Roth Found a firmware update for the model and took a peek at it’s change log. Didn’t see anything relating to PXE in recent changes. Ran it anyway to bring it current. No changes in PXE boot behavior.

@george1421 Ran a capture job before I left Friday using the FOSLinux usb boot method. Checking the deploy sometime today.

As always, thanks for you help you two!