PXE booting a DELL latitude 10 tablet problem
-
[quote=“chad-bisd, post: 16706, member: 18”]Can anyone post some screen caps or pics of the bios network boot settings, the screen where you would expect PXE boot to being, and any errors that are showing up?
At this point I’m confused about where the error occurs. Do you even get an IP when PXE booting? Do you get the FOG menu? Need more info.
I had to learn how to compile a kernel and update driver files when we purchased 300 Acer Iconia w500p tablets. They would not pxeboot using options 66 and 67 if the dhcp server was a different server than the pxeboot server. If FOG was doing DHCP and pxe/tftp then I could PXE boot. If Windows was DHCP and FOG was pxe/tftp, it would hang. 800 other laptops worked fine, but these tablets and 1 other model of laptops would not PXE boot.
I had to implement ProxyDHCP to get my tablets to even PXE boot to the menu, then compile a new kernel with some graphics options disabled to keep the screen from going snowy, and updated drivers for the usb-rj45 lan card built into the docking keyboard to get the NIC working with FOG.[/quote]
I tried upload the photos of the bios settings but they are too large same thing in the with the zip files. I’ll see if i can post somewhere online then just past the link here
-
[quote=“chad-bisd, post: 16706, member: 18”]Can anyone post some screen caps or pics of the bios network boot settings, the screen where you would expect PXE boot to being, and any errors that are showing up?
At this point I’m confused about where the error occurs. Do you even get an IP when PXE booting? Do you get the FOG menu? Need more info.
I had to learn how to compile a kernel and update driver files when we purchased 300 Acer Iconia w500p tablets. They would not pxeboot using options 66 and 67 if the dhcp server was a different server than the pxeboot server. If FOG was doing DHCP and pxe/tftp then I could PXE boot. If Windows was DHCP and FOG was pxe/tftp, it would hang. 800 other laptops worked fine, but these tablets and 1 other model of laptops would not PXE boot.
I had to implement ProxyDHCP to get my tablets to even PXE boot to the menu, then compile a new kernel with some graphics options disabled to keep the screen from going snowy, and updated drivers for the usb-rj45 lan card built into the docking keyboard to get the NIC working with FOG.[/quote]
ok here are the pics of the bios settings
-
OK. The starting PXE over IPv4 is good. Does it … and then give up, or does it ever get an IP address?
-
[quote=“chad-bisd, post: 16728, member: 18”]OK. The starting PXE over IPv4 is good. Does it … and then give up, or does it ever get an IP address?[/quote]
No it never gets an ip address it just sits there for a bit then continues to boot into windows 8 -
At this point I would use WireShark and mirror the port so I could watch the network traffic between the DHCP/TFTP server(s) and the tablet. You’ll want to filter to dhcp and tftp protocols.
-
[quote=“chad-bisd, post: 16731, member: 18”]At this point I would use WireShark and mirror the port so I could watch the network traffic between the DHCP/TFTP server(s) and the tablet. You’ll want to filter to dhcp and tftp protocols.[/quote]
hmm…i will have try this next week. What am i looking for though? It pulls an ip when windows is running, to me it just seems like some sort of discrepancy between the dock pxe boot process and the fog server. -
You are looking for the break down in pxe boot process. Is it failing on the dhcp request or when it tries to get the default boot menu file via tftp.
-
[quote=“chad-bisd, post: 16733, member: 18”]You are looking for the break down in pxe boot process. Is it failing on the dhcp request or when it tries to get the default boot menu file via tftp.[/quote]
My guess would be it’s failing on dhcp request since it never gets to the fog menu at all. I will see if i can get that wireshark done in the morning though, are you proficient at reading wireshark logs? I can post the results after i’m done
-
Just be sure to filter to TFTP and DHCP traffic. I think I had to make a custom filter in WireShark to capture both at the same time. Just turn on wireshark with the filter, start your client for PXE boot, wait for it to error/bypass pxe boot, and stop wireshark.
In the log, you’ll see the client do a dhcprequest broadcast, the server response, the client confirm, and the server confirm. The first server response should include the IP address, subnet mask, gateway, and next-server + filename info. Shortly after the dhcpack from the server, you should see a TFTP request from the client to the FOG server.
-
See the attached screen shot, for some reason it seems to act normal now but still can’t get to the fog server menu. As you will see in the screen shot it pull an ip now and it can see the fogserver i’m not sure what a NBP file is, does anyone now what that is?
[url=“/_imported_xf_attachments/0/409_2013-10-03T09-24-16_0.jpg?:”]2013-10-03T09-24-16_0.jpg[/url]
-
NBP is a Network Boot strap Program.
Your pxelinux.0 is a NBP file.
Can you try to load the menu with a gPXE disc?
In my particular case, only part of the pxelinux.0 file was being received, I had to set up the DNSMasq in order to properly load my pxe menu.
-
[quote=“Jaymes Driver, post: 17771, member: 3582”]NBP is a Network Boot strap Program.
Your pxelinux.0 is a NBP file.
Can you try to load the menu with a gPXE disc?
In my particular case, only part of the pxelinux.0 file was being received, I had to set up the DNSMasq in order to properly load my pxe menu.[/quote]
I never made one before but i can give it a shot
-
Download a live cd offline, it’s like 30 or so MB, really small. You can supply it your server and pxe file information.
I was able to still get my pxe menu to display with the gPXE live disc, but for some reason the pxe file was getting blocked when fog sent it out. I used the information gathered when the pxe file failed and compared it to the dumps when I ran it with the gPXE disc (granted that the gPXE option works for you).
Just follow the instructions that Chad gave you.
Good luck
-
For those of you with Dell Latitude 10 (ST2 or ST2E) tablets… Dell has verified over and over that this model will NOT boot to PXE. Their tech team will not modify it to boot to PXE. The next model coming out will be able to. Had a Dell Slate do the same thing…three bios updates later, it would boot to PXE. These will NOT. They are not going to modify them to be able to. I’ve been trying to Clonezilla these $(%*&@# and yes they do freeze at the GRUB screen. I’ve been able to create a bootable USB drive to install my OS so that all works…I think its to do with the x86 32bit architecture that’s causing Clonez problems. I will be speaking with a “level III” tech today to get more info on capturing this image. For now, I am NOT going to set up a server with Server 2012 and MDT just for hits model to boot. I’ll post more replies as I get them.
-
Here’s a side tip for those Latitude 10’s… the dock can only support two USB devices at a time. This machine SUCKS.
I’ve also seen that in my case anyway, the only USB port that sees a USB device (pre-windows) is the front dock USB. So, how do you put the keyboard in the front USB to boot to the BIOS, and choose the flash drive (which also has to be in the front port)??? Well, to free up a USB port, pressing the Volume UP button on the side of the tablet, and I mean pressing it rapidly non-stop, is the same as hitting F12 on your keyboard. That’ll get you to BIOS and you can then see your flash drive which is in the front port. All this, providing that its a working bootable flash drive. As I’ve said, my OS boots up fine through the flash, but not Clonezilla. Hope this helps. -
This post is deleted! -
[quote=“Rick F, post: 19811, member: 18439”]Here’s a side tip for those Latitude 10’s… the dock can only support two USB devices at a time. This machine SUCKS.
I’ve also seen that in my case anyway, the only USB port that sees a USB device (pre-windows) is the front dock USB. So, how do you put the keyboard in the front USB to boot to the BIOS, and choose the flash drive (which also has to be in the front port)??? Well, to free up a USB port, pressing the Volume UP button on the side of the tablet, and I mean pressing it rapidly non-stop, is the same as hitting F12 on your keyboard. That’ll get you to BIOS and you can then see your flash drive which is in the front port. All this, providing that its a working bootable flash drive. As I’ve said, my OS boots up fine through the flash, but not Clonezilla. Hope this helps.[/quote]It was rather difficult to get someone that was technical at dell to give me an answer on this but yes pxe booting is not supported on those Latitude 10’s. In fact those Latitude 10’s are discontinued now, and have been replaced with the venue 8 & 11 pro which is suppose to support pxe booting.
