FOG + Pfsense DHCP

[Albertus]

Good Day

I have a problem to get new pc’s to boot to FOG menu.
The new PC’s are Acer Extensa X2610G using UEFI.
I did setup my pfsense to enable network booting with settings as per screenshot.

Please advise where i go wrong as pc does load “ipxe initialising devices”, but then quickly runs through steps not seen by eye and then continue to boot harddrive.
My legacy boot via undionly.kpxe works perfect.

Please Help.

Thank You

Albertus Geyser

[george1421]

While I’m not sure I understand why this is working in my setup.

I have no entry <blank> for Tftp server
Enables network booting unchecked.
next-server points to fog IP
the same boot files as you
and no entry for root-path string.

Based on your configuration, I would remove the root path string.

If you boot into bios mode, are you getting an error from the pxe rom? Or is your issue with efi booting.

[Wayne Workman]

@Albertus The “root-path-string” should be blank.

[Albertus]

Good Day

Thank You for reply.

If i leave my settings as you did then mine stops at “Start PXE over IPv4”.
Can anyone tell me if my Fog TFTP Server settings are correct?

Thank You

Albertus Geyser

[Quazz]

If the issue only occurs with UEFI booting then it has to do with the UEFI implementation in iPXE.

Try the snp.efi file, sometimes that works better for people. Might be worth mentioning that certain machines have trouble UEFI PXE Booting regardless, so there’s not necessarily a solution yet.

[george1421]

Again, I would ask if you can boot in bios mode. The bios pxe roms give a bit more detail. Once we are sure you have pxe booting working then we can focus on efi booting.

Also I don’t see where you mentioned what version of fog you use. Could you let us know that? If you are using 1.2.0 stable or older, I’m going to recommend you upgrade to the trunk release since that handles efi booting MUCH better than the older releases. (but I don’t think that is your problem yet).

[Albertus]

Good Day

Please see attached image of what pc does when booting . . .

Thank You

Albertus Geyser

[george1421]

@Albertus You haven’t told us what version of fog you are running.

But from your picture, the iPXE files are being delivered to the client so your dhcp is setup correctly for bios booting.

Now if you switch back to efi mode on this device, what errors do you get? Please post the picture here (this time no flash please, my eyes are old).

[Albertus]

@george1421

Good Day

I am running FOG 1.2.0.
This is what i get booting in efi mode, not bios mode.
in pc bios i selected UEFI not Legacy.

Hope this helps to help me.

Thank You

Albertus Geyser

[Tom Elliott]

@Albertus if you’re running 1.2.0 then what ipxe files are you using?

[Albertus]

@Tom-Elliott

Good Day

I am running ipxe.efi . . .

Thank You

Albertus Geyser

[Tom Elliott]

@Albertus what I’m getting at is the version of the ipxe file is not that of the version released in 1.2.0, at least if I recall it.

[Albertus]

Good Day

Added are images of what i get when booting legacy mode on this client:

After second image then pc reboots and loops.

Thank You

Albertus Geyser

[Tom Elliott]

@Albertus again those are not 1.2.0 ipxe files. Somebody switched out the files. How do I know?

The version of ipxe is found with the d739 part. 1.2.0 ipxe started with a letter a if I recall correctly.

[Albertus]

@Tom-Elliott should i replace some files? is that what you mean?
If so where can i find files to replace?

[george1421]

@Albertus Lets take a step back and think for a minute. I think we have a language translation issue. This is no problem, we will just take the information collection slower.

Lets start with the basics. When you access the FOG management GUI, there is a picture of a cloud on the upper left side of the screen. On that cloud there are little numbers on the right side of the cloud. Can you tell us what numbers are there?

[Sebastian Roth]

You are perfectly right Tom. This can’t be an official FOG 1.2.0 binary - not just because of the version but there actually was no ipxe.efi in FOG 1.2.0 and neither was there a i386-efi/ipxe.efi file in /tftpboot directory.

So I guess he downloaded a new set of iPXE binaries somewhere around last summer. At least the version number d739 is pointing to an iPXE commit around June 2015. But anyhow.

@Albertus Downloading a set of iPXE binaries is fine if they work for you. So don’t worry, you did nothing wrong. You can try downloading a new set of iPXE binaries to see of they work better (this is on debian - you might need to adjust some of the service commands if you are on CentOS):

sudo service tftpd-hpa stop
sudo mv /tftpboot /tftpboot.backup
sudo mkdir /tftpboot
sudo svn export http://svn.code.sf.net/p/freeghost/code/trunk/packages/tftp/ /tftpboot
sudo chown -R fog /tftpboot
sudo service tftpd-hpa start

The last picture (BIOS mode) you posted is cut off at the bottom exactly where I guess there might be valuable information.
But the UEFI mode picture is better! “Exec format error” could be because the kernel you are using is too old. EFI_STUB was added in kernel version 3.16.x and FOG 1.2.0 default kernel is 3.15.6!!
Please run file /var/www/fog/service/ipxe/bzImage on your FOG server to see which kernel version you have. You can update the kernel in the web interface (FOG configuration).

Edit: Just stumbled upon the commit that had iPXE version d739 (git / svn FWIW)

[Albertus]

@george1421 the numbers in cloud is 3613.

[Wayne Workman]

@Albertus said:

@george1421 the numbers in cloud is 3613.

You should update to the latest in this case, since you are already on Trunk. There’s been a lot of changes since 3613.

You can do that by following one of the methods here:
https://wiki.fogproject.org/wiki/index.php?title=Upgrade_to_trunk

I would recommend either the svn or the git method. Either is fine.

[george1421]

@Albertus said:

@george1421 the numbers in cloud is 3613.

I agree Wayne 3613 is pretty old in the trunk. The latest trunk version (as I write this) is 6483. The Devs have made great progress in the last month to support the newest hardware and hard drive configurations. Its well worth the effort to upgrade. When you get to the latest trunk release and still have issues, then we can get the Devs attention to your specific problem.

From your original post, I’m pretty sure your issue is not pfsense or pxe booting.