bzImage hangs at x% when deploying image on UEFI device, and deployed image refuses to boot.

[Leviathan]

I must apologize for my lack of knowledge here, I am extremely new to corporate IT, linux, and deployment in general. My company I just joined asked me to explore an alternative to their extremely slow Windows Deployment Server, so I started to explore FOG. Let me explain the background of my current setup:

I have setup a test environment on my laptop using Virtualbox with several different VMs, all networked as bridge mode so they get their own IP from the company DHCP sever (which I can’t currently touch the settings on, for reasons). Because I am unable to adjust DHCP server settings, I am utilizing dnsmasq to capture PXEboot traffic and point it to my FOG server. Dnsmasq is running on the same VM as my Ubuntu 22.04 FOG server. I installed FOG through the git method, rather than the tarball. I am using the dev-branch, as I found for some reason I was unable to install the stable branch on Ubuntu 22.04.

I am using the following /etc/dnsmasq.d/ltsp.conf for dnsmasq:

port=0
log-dhcp
tftp-root=/tftpboot
dhcp-boot=undionly.kpxe,10.179.1.146
dhcp-no-override
dhcp-vendorclass=BIOS,PXEClient:Arch:00000
dhcp-vendorclass=UEFI32,PXEClient:Arch:00006
dhcp-vendorclass=UEFI,PXEClient:Arch:00007
dhcp-vendorclass=UEFI64,PXEClient:Arch:00009
dhcp-boot=net:UEFI32,i386-efi/snponly.efi,10.179.1.146
dhcp-boot=net:UEFI,snponly.efi,10.179.1.146
dhcp-boot=net:UEFI64,snponly.efi,10.179.1.146
pxe-prompt=“Booting FOG Client”, 1
pxe-service=X86PC, “Boot to FOG”, undionly.kpxe
pxe-service=X86-64_EFI, “Boot to FOG UEFI”, snponly.efi
pxe-service=BC_EFI, “Boot to FOG UEFI PXE-BC”, snponly.efi
dhcp-range=10.179.1.146,proxy

I have also followed a forum article describing how to rebuild the ipxe files, and re-implement them.

I am testing by spinning up new VMs in virtualbox alongside my Ubuntu 22.04 FOG VM, on the same laptop.

It seems when I have the VMs set to legacy (BIOS), I have no issues with PXEbooting to FOG, registering, and capturing/deploying images. When I set the VMs to UEFI, they seem to get stuck at “bzImage… 4%” and just freeze there. BIOS devices do not have this issue.

Also, when I capture an image on a BIOS VM successfully, then deploy that image to another BIOS VM, attempting to boot the deployed VM states that there is no boot device. It simply refuses to boot. We even experienced this on a physical device when testing yesterday. The OS I am testing for capturing and deploying here is Mint. Once we get the issues all worked out and get past the proof of concept phase, we plan to use it to deploy a Windows 10 golden image to employee laptops.

So, to recap, I have 2 issues:

1. UEFI devices either cannot PXEboot, or get hung on the stage that says “bzImage…x%”.
2. The image I was able to successfully capture and then deploy on BIOS devices does not seem to be bootable for some reason.

I know this is a ton, but I have spent 4 days delving through wikis, forum posts, youtube videos, etc. and keep fixing one bug then discovering another. I could seriously use someone who is far more experienced than I to help me figure out what is going wrong. We have a massive deployment project that is bogged down by our current Windows Deployment Solution, and there is a lot of pressure for me to figure out how to get this more efficient solution operational. Thanks for any assistance you may provide.

[george1421]

@leviathan Well the easy part, is FOG doesn’t support 22.04 yet. I would stick with ubuntu 20.04 for now. Being on the branch version is the right place to be

You also need to make sure you setup things in the right order.
FOG 1.5.9.115, then update the FOS Linux kernel to 5.15.x series, then recompile ipxe.

Your problem here is when iPXE fails to transfer all of the FOS Linux image (bzImage and init.xz) the problem is either you have an old version of iPXE or you nave network communication issues.