Ipxe boot to Uefi shell reboot afther +/- 5 min

[PvWinters]

Hi,

Installed the Fog Server as our new deployment server instead off WDS.

Now i have added in the advanced menu iscsi boot :
sanboot --no-describe iscsi:10.50.10.25::::iqn.2022-03:dss.target1
This one boots to a lun with some test scripts on it but when you leave the shell untouched it reboots after +/- 5 minutes…

When you boot to a live OS like mint and you leave it untouched we have no reboots.

I have tried to change the watchdog to 0 like here : https://forums.passmark.com/memtest86/42356-system-reset-occuring-5-min-after-booting-memtest86-site-edition-pxe-network-boot

Any idea?

Stijn

[george1421]

@pvwinters Firstly it sounds like you are not using FOG for imaging purposes. That is fine, but we need to be clear you are not using FOG as it was intended. But that is also the benefit of open source software, you can take it and create something new the developers had never thought of.

So from your example you are pxe booting (with a bios based computer) into iPXE. Then from iPXE you are sanbooting from an iscsi lun. Once your target computer starts booting from the lun, then iPXE (and really FOG) is not involved anymore. Once you start to boot from the lun you can turn off the FOG server, because its job is to get your target computer to go from a powered off state to booting your OS.

The point is if something is causing your target computer to reboot its not any setting in the FOG server. You could use iPXE to make a usb boot drive to jump into sanboot too. The fog server isn’t needed here, but its nice to have because you can make custom iPXE boot menus using the web ui. The reboot command for the target VM has to be the OS that is sanbooted. Either its crashing or some kind of timeout is causing it to restart. I know its not much help, but its not FOG doing this to you.

[PvWinters]

@george1421 " That is fine, but we need to be clear you are not using FOG as it was intended"

Yes we are intended to use the FOG as our prior imaging/capturing server instead our WDS. We had to much issues lately with our WDS so i want to get it out off our network. I have worked with FOG earlier in schools where i had it deployed and works fine many years for there needs, but know with my other job we need something different.

Let me explain :
Current situation : We use WDS for imaging and capture beside that we run a special menu on the ipxe server.

New situation : Fog server for imaging and capture and an add advanced menu to push the same menu of the old ipxe server.

Question is there a way to hold the old ipxe server and remove the WDS and combine it with the new fog server?

These are the ip :
WDS server 10.50.10.20
IPXE Server 10.50.10.21
FOG Server 10.50.10.30

I want to keep the IPXE Server as the default one and when my tech guys want to deploy or capture a image to can boot to the FOG server and do there thing.

I have tried to setup the situation i was intended to implement but it doesn’t work it give me issues when i want to deploy or capture a image.

I can give you my menu settings so you can take a look from the IPXE Server.

Thx,

Br,

Stijn

[george1421]

@pvwinters said in Ipxe boot to Uefi shell reboot afther +/- 5 min:

Question is there a way to hold the old ipxe server and remove the WDS and combine it with the new fog server?

I want to keep the IPXE Server as the default one and when my tech guys want to deploy or capture a image to can boot to the FOG server and do there thing.

Ok this changes the context a bit but its still possible. So let me tell you how FOG works then we can see what fits best for you. Personally I would remove the old pxe boot server and just use FOG for everything, but that is just my opinion not understanding your requirements.

So in a clean fog environment you have dhcp option 66 with the fog server IP address and dhcp option 67 to point to the ipxe boot loader you want to use (there are other options for this but lets not muddy the water right now). The client pxe boots and FOG’s ipxe boot loader is transferred to the client computer. That client computer then boots, requests dhcp address then starts running a script built into the ipxe boot loader where it uses dhcp option 66 to get the IP address of the FOG server and then chains to a file called default.ipxe. default.ipxe then again chains and loads boot.php which builds the FOG iPXE menu.

So with that said, from your current (legacy) ipxe boot server you can chain to tftp://<fogserverip>/default.ipxe to jump into FOG. As long as your legacy ipxe server is running a somewhat current version of iPXE that should work.

Now WDS has 2 ways you can configure it. One is using dhcp option 66 and 67, the other is with a ProxyDHCP service that will send out the pxe boot information that will override dhcp options 66 and 67. FWIW, you can chain from FOG into WDS if needed (I assume ipxe too) with the right chain command.