Hp Elitebook x360 G2 Boot Problems

[Tom Elliott]

@george1421 The driver is already compiled with this item. That said, ipxe might not have the driver for it. So Kernel is not the problem here, it’s the iPXE Drivers that’s the issue.

[george1421]

@tom-elliott OK I stand here a bit red faced. I missed that this was in iPXE still. Too many threads, and not enough extra brain cells to pay attention all the time.

[Sebastian Roth]

@crixx Which FOG menu item did you select that gave you the error we see on the picture? The menu code you posted looks pretty good to me - almost identical to what I get here except the FOG server IP. So my guess about the kernel line missing was wrong.

This is really strange. You say that you are able to image but not use any of the items from the FOG menu?! When you image then the boot.php is just delivering a different iPXE code to the client. This code looks pretty much the same as if you’d select “System Information” from the menu - just calling it with different parameters:

kernel bzImage32 loglevel=4 initrd=init_32.xz ...
imgfetch init_32.xz
boot

So I can’t really believe it runs into that error when selecting a menu item but things go fine when you schedule a task to image that client. I am not saying it’s impossible but I can’t get my head around it yet.

Driver for the RTL8153/2 USB NICs has been in iPXE for quite some time. Lots of (FOG) people have used it. But hey, not every USB NIC based on this particular chip is the same.

[Sebastian Roth]

@crixx When iPXE throws you back to the shell (as seen in the picture) can you please run the following two commands and post another picture here:

iPXE> ifstat
...
iPXE> imgstat
...

[Crixx]

@Sebastian-Roth

I was able to boot and image using snp.efi. Using ipxe.efi everything in the menu throws errors, including image deployment.

Here are the pictures of the two commands that you asked me to run
ifstat:

imgstat:

[Sebastian Roth]

@Crixx Ok, thanks for clarifying! If snp.efi is working for you, then just use this for those clients. Use DHCP classes if other clients don’t like snp.efi and need ipxe.efi for booting I’d say.
Although it would be interesting to figure out why ipxe.efi does not like this particular RTL8153 chip. Most probably it’s some kind of issue that arises from a combination of the elitebook UEFI firmware and this particular USB NIC adapter. Sure we could try to make iPXE to work around this but using snp.efi is just as good and does not cost us time. All those different binaries are good to use as long as they work for you.

[george1421]

@sebastian-roth said in Hp Elitebook x360 G2 Boot Problems:

If snp.efi is working for you, then just use this for those clients.

Since the OP is using dnsmasq we might be able to do this automatically. It does require a little detective work with dnsmasq. I’m hoping the uuid for this class of computers is populated and consistent for this hardware.

@crixx if you can pxe boot one of these HP computers then look in the dnsmasq log for a uuid value. Record that and the pxe boot another one of these computers. Then please post the results here and we can work up a filter for you.

Ref: https://forums.fogproject.org/topic/8726/advanced-dnsmasq-techniques

[Crixx]

@george1421
Sorry for the delay. Had some other non imaging related things to take care of the past few days.

Unfortunately the UUID is completely different for each of the three machines that I tested.

It is alright though as setting everything to boot using snp.efi for now is fine. We are just looking for a solution to image this specific model of machines right now and it is unlikely that we will move all of our machines over to using fog for imaging as it would mean throwing out many hours of work and customization put into our existing system.

In the future hopefully either fog or our existing imaging solution will have better support for these new model HP’s.

[Sebastian Roth]

@crixx said in Hp Elitebook x360 G2 Boot Problems:

In the future hopefully either fog or our existing imaging solution will have better support for these new model HP’s.

Better?!? What better can it get than FOG PXE booting and imaging the machines? All the different iPXE binaries are good. There is none better than the other. What works for a particular machine is just good.

[Crixx]

@Sebastian-Roth
While snp.efi does let us boot and image the machine, it is far from perfect. As I stated below, none of the other utilities in the boot menu work. While the ability to register the host, run memtest, ect aren’t critical, it’s not what I would say ‘Ideal’ functionality is.

Also please don’t take that as a Dig at FOG, you, or the support that you’ve provided me, which I very much appreciate. The fact that I can image these at all is going to be a huge time saver.

[george1421]

@crixx The x360 was released in early Apr 2017.

FOG does rely on other FOSS projects that make FOG possible. One important one is iPXE. Those guys in the iPXE project are really good and are constantly changing / upgrading the iPXE kernel as new hardware is released.

I would expect one or both things to happen here.

1. HP will release a firmware fix that will enable ipxe.efi to boot correctly.
2. The iPXE devs will get their hands on one of these x360s and figure out what’s wrong with their kernel.

So I see this (snp.efi) as a stop gap measure until one of the two are updated.

[Sebastian Roth]

@crixx said in Hp Elitebook x360 G2 Boot Problems:

While snp.efi does let us boot and image the machine, it is far from perfect. As I stated below, none of the other utilities in the boot menu work. While the ability to register the host, run memtest, ect aren’t critical, it’s not what I would say ‘Ideal’ functionality is.

From your other messages to me it sounded like all was working with snp.efi. Sorry for that. It’s very weird that imaging would work but register would not. Both are booting the exact same kernel just handing over different kernel command line options. Could you please take a new picture of the error you see using snp.efi?

[Sebastian Roth]

@Crixx Did you get to take a picture of the error yet?