INQUIRY: Network
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@Sebastian-Roth Okay, so if I wanted to do this on the GPU servers I would have to do the same thing? If it is on the same network it should be able to PXE boot. Do you have any suggestions as to why it would not PXE boot. I checked BIOS and there is no option to enable PXE.
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@Dv27842 There is no chance that we can help you without knowing which server you have. We’d need to know at least make and model, best if you can take pictures of all the BIOS screens and post here so we actually see what you have.
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@Sebastian-Roth If you are referencing the GPU servers I would not not worry about that as someone else will be working on this for now. If you do need the name make and model of the servers we have here they are the Dell PowerEdge R720 also the machines that I am trying to PXE boot off of are Acer Predator V1.05 Predator 2.64. I will get the screenshots for you later, but hopefully this information will suffice.
I was able to get a PXE boot from BIOS, but I got an error saying “changeloading failed” I have seen a forum on this issue. I will continue to troubleshoot from the directions in that forum, but if you have any suggestion considering from the above parapgraph let me know. Thanks
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@Dv27842 said in INQUIRY: Network:
Dell PowerEdge R720
Found a video on PXE booting R630, not the same but maybe close enough: https://www.dell.com/support/contents/de/de/debsdt1/videos/videoPlayer/k1ajZzdjoBzjZi446Qb1UlHpziX2v2bx
Acer Predator V1.05 Predator 2.64
Can’t find too much regarding those version numbers. Can you send a link pointing to that product?
I was able to get a PXE boot from BIOS, but I got an error saying “changeloading failed”
That’s probably when there is no task scheduled to capture or deploy the machine it defaults to chainload the OS from your local hard drive. Though this can be a bit picky especially with your server hardware I suppose.
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@Sebastian-Roth Acer Predator 17 GX-792-7448 17.3" Gaming Laptop Computer - Black Intel Core i7-7700HQ Processor; NVIDIA GeForce GTX1080 8GB GDDR5X VR Ready; 16GB DDR4-2400 RAM; 256GB SSD + 1TB HDD
this the laptop info. I added the wrong one. Thanks.
I will test the method that you said. I will have to test different things out.
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@Sebastian-Roth Do you think I can troubleshoot the issue through iPXE command line. If so do you have information on commands I can follow for FOG?
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@Dv27842 I’ve been kind of loosely following this thread, so if I get this wrong please understand.
You are trying to pxe boot this Acer. I don’t know Acer computers, but on the dells if the target computer is in uefi mode you need to enable the uefi network stack as well as pxe booting in the network configuration panel in the bios.
If your firmware doesn’t have pxe boot support in uefi bios then your only option is to boot from a usb stick. I have a few tutorials on how to create a usb boot stick. The easiest way is to create a usb stick to boot iPXE to bypass the on board PXE roms.
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@george1421 I was able to enable everything except network stack, there is no advanced setting to enable this and it not in BIOS. I will have to boot iPXE from a usb stick. If you can please link the tutorials so that I can get started. Thank you.
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for number 4.From a functioning FOG server copy /tftpboot/ipxe.efi to your windows computers. (pscp from putty tools works great)
Do I have to build the file? if so would I use this https://wiki.fogproject.org/wiki/index.php?title=IPXE#Compile?
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@Dv27842 said in INQUIRY: Network:
Do I have to build the file? if so would I use this https://wiki.fogproject.org/wiki/index.php?title=IPXE#Compile?
Sorry I’ve had meetings all afternoon. To answer your question no. UEFI is a bit magical. If there is a boot loader in the specific path on the disk and its named correctly the uefi firmware will try to load it. So in this case we will take ipxe.efi copy it form the fog server and then rename it to bootx64.efi (not the right case) then move it into the usb flash drive in the proper directory. The uefi firmware will see it and load it.
The fog distributed version of ipxe.efi contains the fog startup script that will locate the FOG server based on the dhcp parameters sent. We are just bypassing the network adapters pxe firmware by loading ipxe.efi (an extended pxe boot rom) from the usb drive.
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@george1421 I don’t see the file, I have tested it on my desktop and I do see it should I just transfer the file to the VM. Also, I am beginning to think this is an issue with DHCP. I am not sure if I can check if I chose to set up FOG with DHCP. If there is a way to check this and find out let me know.
Also, when I try to boot PXEI get the DHCP answering to net0 is this correct?
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@george1421 sorry I need an answer to this as I need to test it out and let my manager know if this will be completed in time. Thank you.
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@Dv27842 said in INQUIRY: Network:
I don’t see the file, I have tested it on my desktop and I do see it should I just transfer the file to the VM. Also,
This statement confuses me a bit. We are still talking about usb booting into ipxe right? The file is on the fog server in the /tftpboot directory. Its called ipxe.efi. If the /tftpboot directory is not there you can search for the file with
sudo find / -name ipxe.efiBut it should be in the /tftpboot directory.You can get an older version from the github site too. But its best to get it from your fog server. https://github.com/FOGProject/fogproject/tree/master/packages/tftp
