Fujitsu T939 Tablet not PXE Booting

michaeloberg

OK let me start with a bit of history. I have 122 Fujitsu T938 Tablet computers that work fine with Fog (1.5.7.2) after making the following changes to the BIOS:

Under Advanced – Boot Configurations – DISABLE FAST BOOT
Under Security – Secure Boot Configurations - SECURE BOOT OPTION DISABLED
Under Advanced – Boot Configurations – CSM ENABLE

These tablets are no longer available and had to buy a replacement for one that was stolen. Fujitsu sent me a T939 for the replacement. When I go to make the changes in the BIOS I can:

Under Advanced – Boot Configurations – DISABLE FAST BOOT
Under Security – Secure Boot Configurations - SECURE BOOT OPTION DISABLED

I CANNOT make the change to enable CSM (option not there). I reached out to Fujitsu and they told me they only troubleshoot hardware problems not software. I explained the BIOS is not software specific and that I am trying to network boot this machine to capture an image. The technician on the phone couldn’t grasp the idea that the BIOS is NOT software and refuse to provide help other than “enable PXE boot”. After realizing I was trying to go up river without a paddle I read forum after forum, networked with colleagues in my state (work in education), and nobody has an answer primarily because I am the only one in South Dakota running FOG and the UEFI boot options are so embedded on the newer computers there are few examples currently to work with.

I am looking for any help as I anticipate my next major purchase will see the same challenges I am currently experiencing.

Thanks,

Mike

Sebastian Roth

@michaeloberg I can imagine that newer machines (or even upgrading the firmware) will eventuelly leave you without the old CSM support. So it’s time to look forward and try to use real UEFI.

Can you set the new T939 to boot from network at all? I suppose you can. So you need to setup your DHCP server to provide different iPXE binaries for BIOS and UEFI machines. You wanna read this: https://wiki.fogproject.org/wiki/index.php?title=BIOS_and_UEFI_Co-Existence

If you see issues PXE booting the new T939 in UEFI mode (using ipxe.efi binary) I’d suggest you take a picture of the screen and post here.

michaeloberg

Thank you for the prompt reply. I am currently running my DNS/DHCP services on a Windows 2008 r2 server. I am planning on upgrading this server during our Christmas break prior to Microsoft’s End Of Life for this OS. So, if I am reading the instructions correctly - they only pertain to Server 2012 r1 and newer. I know it talks about 2008, but regardless I don’t want to bang my head on my desk getting this to work on a DC that will be retired in 3 months. Advise from here? Shall I wait until after my upgrade then follow the instructions provided?

Thanks again,

Mike

Sebastian Roth

@michaeloberg As a short term solution you could disable PXE boot options (option 66 and 67) in your Windows DHCP server for now and install dnsmasq - a so called proxy DHCP service on your FOG server. Your Windows DHCP will still hand out the IP address information to all the clients as usually and the proxy DHCP will add in the PXE boot information. Find information on this topic here: https://wiki.fogproject.org/wiki/index.php?title=ProxyDHCP_with_dnsmasq

The important thing to check beforehand is the version of dnsmasq your Linux OS provides. What OS and version do you use?

george1421

I read your situation, but I don’t see the error you are having.

What error do you get when you try to pxe boot the T939, or is the issue that pxe booting isn’t available?

michaeloberg

@george1421 When I turn the laptop on and press F12 for boot options, I select Option 1: NETWORK: IPv4. Then I get a black screen that says >Start PXE over IPv4. Press [ESC] to exit…_ then a Warning Boot Failure error comes up with the only option listed is continue which puts me in an infinite loop.

george1421

@michaeloberg Could you provide a clear screen shot of the error? The context of the error is almost as important as the error itself.

Also what do you have defined for dhcp option 67 {boot-file}?

michaeloberg

@george1421

george1421

@michaeloberg Well that’s a mighty handy error message, Ugh something went wrong…

What do you have defined for dhcp option 67?

Sebastian Roth

@michaeloberg Did you configure your DHCP as described here: https://wiki.fogproject.org/wiki/index.php?title=BIOS_and_UEFI_Co-Existence

michaeloberg

@george1421

michaeloberg

@Sebastian-Roth As mentioned earlier I am currently running my DNS/DHCP services on a Windows 2008 r2 server. I am upgrading this server during our Christmas break prior to Microsoft’s End Of Life for this OS. So, if I am reading the instructions correctly - they only pertain to Server 2012 r1 and newer. I know it talks about 2008, but regardless I don’t want to bang my head on my desk getting this to work on a DC that will be retired in 3 months.

I don’t want to make a lot of unnecessary changes if waiting for my new DHCP/DNS Domain Controllers are the better option. Currently this is only affecting one machine but always looking ahead as this will be a problem for anyone refreshing their computers who haven’t already modified their environment to support dual boot situations.

Sebastian Roth

@michaeloberg said in Fujitsu T939 Tablet not PXE Booting:

As mentioned earlier I am currently running my DNS/DHCP services on a Windows 2008 r2 server.

Right, forgot about that. Then I’d suggest you first try setting option 67 to ipxe.efi just to see if the Fujitsu T939 PXE boots fine in UEFI mode. If it does you might look into what I said about dnsmasq earlier! Please tell us which Linux OS and version you have.

george1421

@Sebastian-Roth said in Fujitsu T939 Tablet not PXE Booting:

Then I’d suggest you first try setting option 67 to ipxe.efi just to see if the Fujitsu T939 PXE boots fine in UEFI mode

This is also my recommendation. If it works then we can work on how to make your configuration work dynamically. The fix for the dynamic settings is about 10 minutes worth of work.

michaeloberg

@Sebastian-Roth

And just like that - the simple change of Option 67 to ipxe.efi, the Fujitsu T939 is imaging!

My version of Linux is Ubuntu 16.04.6.

I was unable to boot my old Fujitsu T938s with this change to the DHCP setting, when I switch it back to undionly.pxe then of course it works. So thank you thus far, now my question is what should I do next keeping in mind I will be upgrading my Domain Controllers in December.

Thanks again!!!

Mike

Sebastian Roth

@michaeloberg said in Fujitsu T939 Tablet not PXE Booting:

I was unable to boot my old Fujitsu T938s with this change to the DHCP setting, when I switch it back to undionly.pxe then of course it works.

Sounds good!

My version of Linux is Ubuntu 16.04.6.

16.04 is quite old and doesn’t have the UEFI capable version of dnsmasq included - only has version 2.75 but you need at least 2.76. But there is an option for you. Thanks to George we have a great manual on compiling the right version of dnsmasq by hand: https://wiki.fogproject.org/wiki/index.php?title=ProxyDHCP_with_dnsmasq#Compiling_dnsmasq_2.76_if_you_need_uefi_support

george1421

@michaeloberg said in Fujitsu T939 Tablet not PXE Booting:

And just like that - the simple change of Option 67 to ipxe.efi, the Fujitsu T939 is imaging!

IF this is just a one off situation you can manually manage dhcp option 67 between ipxe.efi and undionly.kpxe until you can move to a 2012+ dhcp server. If you had to manage multiple uefi systems or a new dhcp server is over 6 months away then I would say go ahead and compile 2.76 and set it up on the fog server. There is no harm in dnsmasq running on the fog server to supply the pxe boot information only. If there was no fog server then there would be no pxe booting anyway so there is no penalty for setting it up. But since you have only one system and its now imaged, just manually manage dhcp option 67 for now.

michaeloberg

@Sebastian-Roth Sorry to bother again, I am stepping though the instructions to Compile dnsmasq2.76 but am stalled out on step 6.

It instructs me to “Find this section”
/* #define HAVE_LUASCRIPT /
/ #define HAVE_DBUS /
/ #define HAVE_IDN /
/ #define HAVE_CONNTRACK /
/ #define HAVE_DNSSEC */

When I was initially stepping through this I found it, but did a keyboard combo of sorts and now cannot find it. I got called away to the administration office and when I returned the Putty session expired. I logged back in, started again at step 5 by entering in sudo vi src/config.h and this is what I have:

Last login: Mon Sep 23 07:29:15 2019 from 10.2.0.39
mike@fog-server:~$ sudo vi src/config.h
[sudo] password for mike:

~
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
“src/config.h” [New DIRECTORY] 0,0-1 All

I will admit I am a Linux novice - hopefully I didn’t screw this up. I can do a full VM restore if necessary, just looking for advise from this point. I really wish I could negotiate a service contract with FOG whereas I would pay an annual maintenance fee for updates, troubleshooting, etc so I don’t have to bother you fine folks that help the ignorant

Thanks again in advance!

Michael

george1421

@michaeloberg What is the Host OS on the fog server. Its pretty strange that your distros repo doesn’t have 2.76 unless you are running an older host OS.

And to answer your question about step 6, that should be in the base directory where you extracted the dnsmasq tar ball into. sudo find / -name dnsmasq* should give you some hints too.

michaeloberg

@george1421 The Host OS is Unbuntu 16.04.06.

When I log into the system it shows the following:

Welcome to Ubuntu 16.04.6 LTS (GNU/Linux 4.4.0-66-generic x86_64)

Documentation: https://help.ubuntu.com
Management: https://landscape.canonical.com
Support: https://ubuntu.com/advantage

144 packages can be updated.
36 updates are security updates.

New release ‘18.04.2 LTS’ available.
Run ‘do-release-upgrade’ to upgrade to it.

Last login: Mon Sep 23 09:26:54 2019 from 10.2.0.39

Again I am a novice to Linux so I am not sure - will this upgrade me to the latest release of Ubuntu? When I typed in sudo find / -name dnsmasq* it displayed the following:

Thanks in advance,

Michael

Fujitsu T939 Tablet not PXE Booting

140

11.7k

17.2k

154.7k