Compiling iPXE boot kernels

[george1421]

NOTE: This method below is no longer needed, but we are leaving it active for reference only. FOG now contains all of the tools you need to compile the current version of iPXE. That tutorial is listed here: https://forums.fogproject.org/topic/15826/updating-compiling-the-latest-version-of-ipxe

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To answer several requests in the forum about changing the keyboard mapping in the FOG iPXE menu. The only way to do change the keyboard mappings is to recompile the iPXE kernels from their source code since the keyboard layout is defined/set at compile time and not run time.

By following the process below you should be able to compile your own copies of the ipxe boot kernels (undionly.kpxe, ipxe.efi or any other FOG Project supplied boot kernel).
Understand: This method of creating your own boot kernels is not supported by the FOG Project Developers. If your make your own boot kernels and your computers fail to pxe boot, YOU are responsible for fixing any issue (or rerun the fog installer to restore the files to what the developers have created and tested).

Be aware that FOG uses another open source application called iPXE to provide the dynamic menuing structure. iPXE is created and manged by the iPXE Project team and not the FOG Developers.

This tutorial is only an example of how one might compile your own iPXE boot kernels on your fog server.

If your fog server is Ubuntu based you will need to install the compiler and development tools

sudo apt-get install build-essential liblzma-dev

If your fog server is Centos based you will need to install the compiler tools and required library

yum groupinstall "Development Tools" 
yum install xz-devel

Change to your home directory and clone the ipxe source files

git clone http://git.ipxe.org/ipxe.git ipxe

Make back up copies of the files we ar e about to change.

mv ~/ipxe/src/config/console.h ~/ipxe/src/config/console.h.sav
mv ~/ipxe/src/config/general.h ~/ipxe/src/config/general.h.sav
mv ~/ipxe/src/config/settings.h ~/ipxe/src/config/settings.h.sav

If you have the FOG Project installer files already downloaded on your fog server, you can just copy the FOG Project customized files to the iPXE source directories

cp <path_to_installer_files>/fogproject/src/ipxe/src/config/* ~/ipxe/src/config
cp <path_to_installer_files>/fogproject/src/ipxe/src/ipxescript ~/ipxe/src

If you DO NOT have the FOG Project installer files you can download only the specific files needed from the FOG Project GitHub site to create your custom iPXE boot kernels:

wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/FOGProject/fogproject/blob/master/src/ipxe/src/config/console.h -O ~/ipxe/src/config/console.h
wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/FOGProject/fogproject/blob/master/src/ipxe/src/config/general.h -O ~/ipxe/src/config/general.h
wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/FOGProject/fogproject/blob/master/src/ipxe/src/config/settings.h -O ~/ipxe/src/config/settings.h 
wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/FOGProject/fogproject/blob/master/src/ipxe/src/ipxescript -O ~/ipxe/src/ipxescript

Use the linux command sed to change the keyboard mapping. To use the following command replace XX with the proper keyboard code for your location.
sed -i 's/KEYBOARD_MAP\tus/KEYBOARD_MAP\tXX/g' ~/ipxe/src/config/console.h

For example if you want to change the US keyboard to the French keyboard in the FOG iPXE menus you would replace XX with fr as in this example:

sed -i 's/KEYBOARD_MAP\tus/KEYBOARD_MAP\tfr/g' ~/ipxe/src/config/console.h

To be sure the settings are correct, you can run the following command to confirm the keyboard mappings have been changed.

grep -e 'KEYBOARD_MAP' ~/ipxe/src/config/console.h

[Editor note, insert expected output here]

All supported iPXE keymaps are listed on this page:
https://github.com/ipxe/ipxe/tree/master/src/hci/keymap

Now that you have the keyboard mapping set, lets compile iPXE…
Change to the iPXE source directory and run make clean to remove any unneeded bits

cd ~/ipxe/src
make clean

Build the BIOS boot kernel undionly.kpxe, rename the original undionly.kpxe file, and finally copy over the custom iPXE boot kernel.

make bin/undionly.kpxe EMBED=~/fogproject/src/ipxe/src/ipxescript
sudo mv /tftpboot/undionly.kpxe /tftpboot/undionly.kpxe.old
sudo cp bin/undionly.kpxe /tftpboot

Purge any prevoiusly built object files (aways good practice when you update configuration files.

make clean

If you have the FOG Project installer files already downloaded on your fog server, you can just copy the FOG Project customized files to the iPXE source directories

cp <path_to_installer_files>/fogproject/src/ipxe/src-efi/config/* ~/ipxe/src/config

If you DO NOT have the FOG Project installer files you can download only the specific files needed from the FOG Project GitHub site to create your custom iPXE boot kernels:

wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/FOGProject/fogproject/blob/master/src/ipxe/src-efi/config/console.h -O ~/ipxe/src/config/console.h
wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/FOGProject/fogproject/blob/master/src/ipxe/src-efi/config/general.h -O ~/ipxe/src/config/general.h
wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/FOGProject/fogproject/blob/master/src/ipxe/src-efi/config/settings.h -O ~/ipxe/src/config/settings.h

Use the same sed command above to update the UEFI boot files. Hint: Don’t forget to replace XX with your desired keyboard map.

sed -i 's/KEYBOARD_MAP\tus/KEYBOARD_MAP\tXX/g' ~/ipxe/src/config/console.h

Build the UEFI boot kernel ipxe.efi, rename the original ipxe.efi file, and finally copy over the custom iPXE boot kernel.

make bin-x86_64-efi/ipxe.efi EMBED=~/fogproject/src/ipxe/src/ipxescript
sudo mv /tftpboot/ipxe.efi /tftpboot/ipxe.efi.old
sudo cp ~/ipxe/src/bin-x86_64-efi/ipxe.efi /tftpboot

If you need snponly.efi (roughly equivelent to BIOS’ undionly.kpxe) run these commands (Hint: This compile command will run really quick since all of the hard work was done in the previous step).

make bin-x86_64-efi/snponly.efi EMBED=~/fogproject/src/ipxe/src/ipxescript
sudo mv /tftpboot/snponly.efi /tftpboot/snponly.efi.old
sudo cp ~/ipxe/src/bin-x86_64-efi/snponly.efi /tftpboot

Clean up after yourself in case you need to build these kernels over again.

make clean