UEFI PXE on Dell Optiplex 7010 hangs

[Sebastian Roth]

@BardWood We have seen hangs on iPXE on a couple of different hardware. Your’s sounds like a buggy firmware from what I have heard so far. The actual reason we cannot tell til we dig into this. I am more than happy to go through the whole debugging process with you but only if you are keen enough to go through the whole thing with me? Can take two weeks or four weeks or just a few days of sending messages forth and back (try this, yeah shows this on the screen, picture, then try this, yeah… and so on). There is no point in starting this time consuming work if it stops right in the middle of nowhere because you had to give all the devices to users or have no time to test and send pictures anymore because your boss tells you to work on something else. So let me know.

Read through this to get an idea of the endeavor: https://forums.fogproject.org/topic/6525/pxe-boot-hp-x2-210-hybrid-tablet-windows-10-pro

As a start try using other binaries like snp.efi or snponly.efi. You could be lucky with those. We never know before we test.

[BardWood]

Thank you Sebastian, yes I can. I’ve been doing all the images/pxe at my work with FOG & CloneZilla for ~3 years and ghosting in general for ~20.

I’ll outline an infrastructure high level doc so you know what we’re working with. I technically have untill March (no hard deadline) and it’s a ‘priority project’ so this IS what I’m supposed to be doing. The infrastructure is very stable. I am a Sr admin but don’t have direct access to the Cisco network gear. I do ‘own’ the servers though. The net admin is very responsive. That said, I do general IT for a small yet global company and stuff happens.

Although I said all gens of X1 Carbon are working fine with UEFI, the original X1 isn’t working with ipxe.efi but I didn’t test other *.efi. UEFI does work but not from PXE. It’s a great loaner laptop due to built-in ETH port which I’d like to learn how to diagnose, in addition to the Dell. Seems like a great skill to have. So what do I need? Wireshark? Other tools?

[Sebastian Roth]

@BardWood Great to hear! So let’s get right into it. Please let us focus on one hardware at a time. This thread’s topic is Dell Optiplex 7010 and so we head for this. Will get to the X1 when we are done with the Dell. Just don’t want to mix up things as I am pretty sure the issues are different.

So please try PXE booting with snp.efi or snponly.efi (instead of ipxe.efi). Does this help? Just wanna make sure before we head into the ugly debugging part of this story.

@BardWood said:

So what do I need? Wireshark? Other tools?

Awesome! Seems like you know what you are doing! This will be great fun to work on I am sure. For now we need iPXE and the compiler, no network analyzing tools so far. We might get into this as well but could be that we even don’t need to. Let’s see. Are you good with C code? In case you are happy to compile and debug it yourself I can give instructions on where to look and what to do. If not we’ll do it as usually: I compile iPXE binary (debug enabled and added print out statements) and tell you where to download, you put that on your TFTP server (e.g. /tftpboot on your FOG server) and test. Take a picture from the output and screen and post it back. Then I will compile another one for the next steps and so on.

So as a start try the other binaries I suggested and if it doesn’t work change back to ipxe.efi, boot the 7010 and take a picture of the hang on screen. I am fairly sure I know how it looks like but wanna make sure there is nothing overlooked.

[Sebastian Roth]

Working on this in a chat session with @BardWood it looks as if none of the current iPXE binaries work on those machines. So we will get into debugging.

Please try 01_ipxe.efi (download - compiles with DEBUG=efi_image,image_cmd,image) and post picture or video here in the forum. Best if you use the same counter which I have in the iPXE filename for the pics/vids as well so it’s easy to reference.

[george1421]

@sebastian-roth I just grabbed a 7010 from the build up room. Let me get setup to repeat the test here.

[george1421]

@george1421 No joy with 01_ipxe.efi or stock ipxe.efi. Stops at init devices.

Its been at this screen for 20 minutes now.

(Yes I need to clean my monitor)

Update: After about 25-30 minutes iPXE appears to abort to no bootable device (Dell firmware prompt)

[Sebastian Roth]

@george1421 Nice, thanks! So here is 02_ipxe.efi… same download link.

[george1421]

@sebastian-roth No joy at the moment. My phone hates me not sending email with picture. Last call was to 0x0xd4463b88. Posted after init devices…

Here is the pict from #2

[Sebastian Roth]

@george1421 @BardWood Next to test is 03_ipxe.efi. Please post picture of the screen when it hangs…

Could be another EFI timer issue (something we had a lot of trouble with the MS Surface devices…)

[george1421]

@sebastian-roth I’m home right now, but I did update the picture. I’ll hit 03 in my AM tomorrow.

[BardWood]

@sebastian-roth
Here is from 03_ipxe.efi (after chmod 655)

Sits there for 15 mins or so and reboots

[Sebastian Roth]

@BardWood Ok, thanks! Sure I was wrong about the EFI timer, thank god.

@george1421 HAHAHAHA… I’ve been there… years ago. But couldn’t remember. LOL See here: http://forum.ipxe.org/showthread.php?tid=7877

[Sebastian Roth]

@BardWood Here is 04_ipxe.efi (compiled with DEBUG=init,runtime,efi_timer,device,pci option). Please try again and post a picture.

[BardWood]

@sebastian-roth 04_ipxe.efi:

[Sebastian Roth]

@BardWood Ok, here is ready to go 05_ipxe.efi (DEBUG=init,efi_utils,efi_driver,efi_pci). This time I guess you need to take a video of the messages passing by on screen. Make sure to rest the camera/smartphone e.g. on a pile of books so we get a decent steady picture. Would be great if you could even take a video with 60 fps which most smartphones are capable of these days!

But if there’s too much output on screen and you can’t take a proper video you might test 06_ipxe.efi (DEBUG=init,efi_utils,efi_pci)…

@george1421 Re-reading all the stuff we tried back in 2015 I get the impression that the issue with those 7010s is that for some reason the native Intel driver is not being used. Then it tries SNP and for some reason that fails. More or less a guess though.

[BardWood]

@sebastian-roth

RE: 05 = Wowsa! Yea, much output. My phone won’t let me video yet because the battery is too low (???). I’ll capture a video later but I cant even read it in person it scrolls by really fast. I’ll do what I can.

RE: 06 =

[Sebastian Roth]

@BardWood Ok, seems like it actually does see it as being a proper Intel NIC. I think we are on the right track. Though it definitely needs more work than I had expected. Keep it up and hopefully you can get a good video (60 fps!!) of it. This is where digital devices have a great advantage over our eyes.

[george1421]

@sebastian-roth Well let me say I’ve very disappointed in this latest iphone upgrade. Its really driving me crazy at the moment.

I finally have the download figured out. I’ll get you the link to the 05 = Wowsa! video in a moment, or when ever my iphone decides to email me the video
Intersting messages in video

00:16.0 (8086:1e3d class 0708000) has no driver
00:16.1 cannot read PCI configuration: No such device http://ipxe.org/0x2c044087
00:16.3 (8086:1e3d class 0708002) has no driver
00:19.0 (8086:1502 class 020000) has driver "82579lm"
has driver "PCI"
disconnecting existing drivers

Then loops forever

Has driver "MII"
DRIVER_START
Refusing to start during disconnection
has driver "SNP"
DRIVER_START
refusing to start during disconnection

[BardWood]

@sebastian-roth Unfortunately I can’t capture 60 FPS video on a Motorola Droid Turbo. I thought it was an artificial limitation since the camera is capable of it spec-wise but when I tried in Open Camera, I got the same message. I’ll see if I can get our photographer buf to do it on her iPhone 6.

[BardWood]

@sebastian-roth OK have a ~1Gb video file I’m trying to upload to flickr of 05 but a quick glance tells me it’s scrolling the same info in a loop. Here is a screenshot: