Laptops without ethernet port

[Polar Bear]

Hello,

nowadays some laptops do not have ethernet port for wired connection. The only available option is USB NIC.

How such situation can be resolved?
What would be a procedure?

My understanding is that USB drive with linux kernel and driver for USB NIC interface would require to initiate DHCP request to communicate with FOG server.

Thank you for any leads to helpful information.

[Sebastian Roth]

@Polar-Bear There is no general guide we can give you. The option you pointed out using a USB NIC is the only one you have but it depends on the specific hardware used. Some vendors only allow PXE network booting with certain USB NIC adapters.

As well you want to look into “MAC pass-through” to be able to use the host-specific MAC address instead of the USB NIC MAC address.

It’s probably the best idea to check with the vendor to see if they sell USB NICs that offer PXE booting as well as MAC pass-through.

[jschoffstall]

There are some Dell USB to Ethernet adapters that work well for this. There are others as well. I just don’t have the specifics handy.

https://www.amazon.com/Dell-Adaptor-USB-C-Ethernet-DBQBCBC064/dp/B016FK6SCW

https://www.amazon.com/Dell-0K17480-Gigabit-Ethernet-Card/dp/B00WHW76NI

You can also search for USB Ethernet PXE.
Only certain chipsets will work.

[lukebarone]

Another option (albeit very slow) is to try wireless imaging. It can work, but it is VERY slow (i.e. a normal image taking me < 5minutes can take over an hour).

[Sebastian Roth]

@lukebarone said in Laptops without ethernet port:

wireless imaging.

For that you would need to build your own FOS kernel with wireless drivers included. The official FOS kernels don’t come with wireless support.

[Polar Bear]

Hello,

I’ve taken simple approach of using USB NIC (Realtek 8152) with ipxe added to flash drive as EFI boot module.

The best result achieved with ‘ecm’ compilation option for boot module

make bin-x86_64-efi/ecm.usb
dd if=bin-x86_64-efi/ecm.usb of=/dev/{usb_drive}

Once configuration was added into DHCP/DNS server the boot process not much different as if NIC was integrated into laptop and sit on PCI bus.

A few FOG imaging test gave same speed result as if NIC was integrated into the laptop ( for test was used HP Elitebook Folio 1040 G2, at this moment a laptop without wired NIC is not available).

Thanks to everyone who responded to my post.

[Sebastian Roth]

@polar-bear said in Laptops without ethernet port:

I’ve taken simple approach of using USB NIC (Realtek 8152) with ipxe added to flash drive as EFI boot module.

That’s another solution to go. Though you are left with the issue of MAC addresses I suppose.