unable to boot HP z240 in UEFI

abos_systemax · May 23, 2016, 1:00 PM

Hi there,

We are trying to boot a HP z240 from iPXE to Fog, in UEFI mode.
It downloads the bzImage and Init.xz, but freezes after that.

I am on version 4.5.3 of the bzImage kernel; but I am unable to pinpoint the exact problem.
I assume it is a kernel panic… but who knows?

Tom Elliott · May 23, 2016, 1:04 PM

What version of FOG are you running?

fry_p · May 23, 2016, 1:10 PM

@abos_systemax Also, just starting with the basics, which bootfile are you using? You can’t use the undionly.kpxe file like usual, you can try the ipxe.efi file as DHCP option 67. Also, if secure boot is enabled, please disable it. Sorry if you already tried these.

abos_systemax · May 23, 2016, 1:15 PM

@Tom-Elliott

we a re using fog trunk 6929
with bzimage 4.5.3

we have an ipxe.efi which is able to boot, however the system hangs after

bzImage… OK!
init.xz… OK!

I’ve seen more posts for this issue, but none have a ‘real’ answer, only a modified bzImage which is outdated because the questions are old.

Also: yes, we have disabled secureboot.

Tom Elliott · May 23, 2016, 1:15 PM

@abos_systemax Can you update to the latest first? Seeing as we’re now up to 7793.

abos_systemax · May 23, 2016, 1:17 PM

@Tom-Elliott
Will try that.

george1421 · May 23, 2016, 1:30 PM

said in unable to boot HP z240 in UEFI:

HP z240

For reference this system has an Intel I219LM network controller if using the on board network adapter. Ref: http://h20195.www2.hp.com/v2/GetPDF.aspx/c04760707.pdf

abos_systemax · May 23, 2016, 2:26 PM

@abos_systemax

We have upgraded Trunk to the latest version, but to no avail: still stuck at init.xz…OK!

george1421 · May 23, 2016, 2:38 PM

@abos_systemax Just for clarity let me restate what we know so far.

This HP system is booting UEFI mode with secure boot off
You are using the ipxe.efi iPXE boot kernel
The images (bzImage and the init) is getting to the target computer
The system is failing to launch the boot code for bzImage so it appears to hang.

@Sebastian-Roth Didn’t you have a conversation with a HP tech a while ago when we had a HP device failing to transition between iPXE and bzImage. I think we also talked about GRUB in that discussion. Would this system also fall into that category of buggy firmware?

abos_systemax · May 23, 2016, 2:40 PM

@george1421 This is correct. The machines gets detected in iPXE.efi and boots to boot.php, laods bzImage and init.xz and after that fails to do anything for at least 15 minutes now.

george1421 · May 23, 2016, 2:48 PM

@abos_systemax While this is probably not a value added activity, have you updated the firmware on this device to the latest release?

abos_systemax · May 23, 2016, 2:50 PM

@george1421 No, and I am also not allowed to because our clients work with ‘certifications’ for specific BIOS/Firmware levels

Sebastian Roth · May 23, 2016, 9:17 AM

@george1421 said:

Didn’t you have a conversation with a HP tech a while ago when we had a HP device failing to transition between iPXE and bzImage. I think we also talked about GRUB in that discussion.

Yes I had a very long discussion with some people from HP and the Insyde UEFI firmware guys! A couple of weeks forth and back but finally we (they) managed to find the issue in the firmware and gave us an updated version. Check out the lengthy discussion on the forum about the HP X2 210 tablet. Long story short I really hope that we are not facing the same issue with those z240 machines!!!

@abos_systemax There is a simple test to see if this is the same problem (preperation can be done on windows or linux!):

get an (empty) USB key and format with FAT32/VFAT
mount and create directory EFI\BOOT (windows) or EFI/BOOT (linux) on the newly formated USB key
download the latest kernel binary and put into this directory but renaming it to BOOTX64.EFI
boot the machine (UEFI boot, secure boot off, boot from USB)

Either you see pretty much nothing (then we might have the same issue as mentioned above) or you see some boot messages (YEAH!) which will end in a kernel panic - perfectly fine as we are missing initrd and kernel boot parameters on the USB key…

abos_systemax · May 23, 2016, 9:24 AM

@Sebastian-Roth

I am afraid, that I am not seeing anything after booting to the USB.

~~How did you resolve the HP X2 210’s?~~ reading the topic linked above…

Sebastian Roth · May 23, 2016, 9:53 AM

@abos_systemax said:

No, and I am also not allowed to because our clients work with ‘certifications’ for specific BIOS/Firmware levels

Is there any chance a new UEFI version will be “certified” any time soon if this is preventing you from PXE booting?

One dirty hack would be to use a patched kernel that is skipping the PCI initialization done by the UEFI kernel code. This is very ugly and might cause other issues I don’t know about yet. Well, let’s start by trying my old debugging kernels. Download old/bzImage_ad (put it on USB key same as before) which should give you something like this. Please take a picture of what you see on screen!!

If you see similar messages on screen (please take a picture so we know what you see as well!) then you can try the next step and get the Matthieu/bzImage_* kernels. Both are patched to skip some of the PCI UEFI init code (don’t remember which is which at the moment). See if you can get all the way through to the kernel panic.

[edit]Another way would be to create a full FOS (that small linux system booting up to do all the hard work of capturing and deploying images on the client) boot USB key. It’s not hard but would mean that you need to boot all your HP z240 machines via USB instead of PXE.[/edit]

abos_systemax · May 23, 2016, 3:59 PM

I am running BIOS level 1.21, I can only Rollback to 1.11, so that is not the route to go.
I will follow the other steps, post back soon

This is what I see with the bzImage_ad

This is what I see with Mattieuh’s bzImage_rb

is it me, or don’t I get Kernel Panics?

Sebastian Roth · May 23, 2016, 4:12 PM

@abos_systemax said:

This is what I see with the bzImage_ad…

Thank god, you do not have the same faulty UEFI firmware on your machines! I think we can forget about all the things I said before and try a different path. Please go to FOG Configuration -> FOG Settings. Enable KERNEL_DEBUG and crank up the LOGLEVEL setting to 7. See this screenshot here on where to find those settings. Then PXE boot as normal. Do you see kernel messages or still nothing?

abos_systemax · May 23, 2016, 4:17 PM

No change after changing the debug level.

Sebastian Roth · May 23, 2016, 4:24 PM

@abos_systemax Can you please try the mentioned old/bzImage_ad via PXE boot? So instead of copy it to the USB key you put it onto your FOG server (/var/www/fog/service/ipxe/bzImage). Rename the current bzImage yo sou can easily switch back later on. Leave DEBUG options on.

abos_systemax · May 23, 2016, 4:31 PM

@Sebastian-Roth said in unable to boot HP z240 in UEFI:

@abos_systemax Can you please try the mentioned old/bzImage_ad via PXE boot? So instead of copy it to the USB key you put it onto your FOG server (/var/www/fog/service/ipxe/bzImage). Rename the current bzImage yo sou can easily switch back later on. Leave DEBUG options on.

Did that, received the same output as when I booted to it from USB

unable to boot HP z240 in UEFI

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