Dell 7000 series laptops pxe booting

The Dealman

ubuntu 16.04
FOG 1.5.8

It seems like the Dell 7000 series laptops are very difficult to get pxe booting to work with the docking stations. I have dell latitude 7220 and 7410’s that will not successfully go through the pxe boot process. I don’t even get an error message, we have tried

Installing firmware version from DELL Support
BIOS Settings General --> Advanced Boot Options --> Enable UEFI Network Stack
System Configuration -> Thunderbolt Adapter Configuration --> Enable Thunderbolt Boot Support, Thunderbolt and Enable Thunderbolt (and PCIe behind TBT) Pre-boot Modules
POST Behavior --> Fastboot --> Set to Thorough
Secure Boot --> Disable (uncheck) Secure Boot Enable

and nothings seems to work. It’s almost like if the network interface isn’t built-in to the laptop it’s going to be a problem with the pxe boot process. Has anyone encounter this and if so what was the fix?

Here is a link to the video of what i see https://drive.google.com/file/d/1dLLI1hl24JkaxkyATjYQfWJeX3GroHRK/view?usp=sharing

george1421

We have 7400s that were a frick’n PITA to figure out when they first arrived, about a year ago. Understand this info is based on what we found in Jul 2019.

At the time the 7400s would sometimes pxe boot from the WD19 docks. One time you power them up and they would not see the nic in the dock as pxe bootable and other times it would. The 7400s would pxe boot every time using the WD15 docks.

At the time we discovered the power button on the 7400s were only a suggestion to do something. The firmware actually controls the computer. Through trial and error we found that sometimes we could get the computer into the F12 boot manager and other times we could not until we discovered a key. On the 7400s when you first power up the system watch the Dell logo, press the F12 key as soon as the logo goes from 100% brightness to 80% (guess, but it will dim slightly). If you press the F12 to early or 2 late the device will just boot into whatever OS is on the disk. This drove us crazy until we found this out. Some times like coming out of firmware setup or vpro setup the image would never dim and always boot into the OS.

OK now in your case you have pxe boot issues, but you should install (using the FOG ui) the version 5.6.x series of FOS Linux. You will need the updated kernels for the new hardware. This isn’t your problem here, but it will be the next issue you run into. The linux kernel developers are no longer back porting new drivers to the 4.19.x series of linux kernels. SO you do/will need to update your FOS Linux kernels.

Your bios (firmware) settings appear correct as I remember. I was thinking under the thunderbolt menu there was something about device or something security that needed to be enabled. I don’t have a 7400 in front of me at the moment to check.

If you can get the target computer into pxe boot mode and have it give you an error that says something about NBF (network boot file) then we can debug it a bit better. But as I read your post you are not even able to get it into pxe boot mode through the F12 menu.

Sebastian Roth

@The-Dealman Which PXE boot file do you use? undionly.kkpxe or ipxe.efi?

The Dealman

@Sebastian-Roth I used the undionly.kpxe file. Should i be using the ipxe.efi? I never used that one.

george1421

@The-Dealman said in Dell 7000 series laptops pxe booting:

ipxe.efi

for uefi based systems

The Dealman

@george1421 Okay. I will give that a try today and report back the results.

The Dealman

@george1421 I tried the ipxe.efi file and that didn’t seem to work either. I have included the screen shot below

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1tHFGw6wMRJezyaBG0Th24HrOIbwZUMC0/view?usp=sharing

george1421

@The-Dealman Well yes and no. It does work because its in ipxe and it detected a network and has an IP address.

Now the blanked out IP address in the picture. Is that your FOG server’s IP address?

The Dealman

@george1421 Yes that would have been the IP of the FOG server so it sort of worked but timed out.

george1421

@The-Dealman So two things.

Is the fog server on the same subnet as the target computer?
If you hit s on that error screen you will be dropped to an iPXE command prompt. Can you ping that address from the pxe booted computer? What happens if you wait for 30 second does the ping success this time?
ifstat from the iPXE console should show you the IP address of the pxe booted computer is that address consistent with what you expect? Can you ping that address from the fog server?

The Dealman

@george1421 Yes the FOG server is on the same subnet as the target computer. When i hit the S at the iPXE command prompt after the time out i did get to the command prompt. I pinged the ip of the FOG server and i get connection time out over and over again

The Dealman

@george1421 said in Dell 7000 series laptops pxe booting:

ifstat

Here is a screen shot of the ifstat results from the client computer

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1-KLaPigNOP1cxXC1aO3oXLf7oAoooWfL/view?usp=sharing

george1421

@The-Dealman ok while sitting at that ipxe command prompt, key in dhcp net0 and see if it picks up an IP address. It looks like the interface doesn’t have an IP address.

The Dealman

@george1421 I ran the dhcp net0 command and i saw a bunch of … then it said ok. So i did ran a ifstat again and it show the same result as the below screen shot. Should i see the assigned ip in the ifstat results?

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1-KLaPigNOP1cxXC1aO3oXLf7oAoooWfL/view?usp=sharing

george1421

@The-Dealman Just to confirm this is a dell 7000 using the built in network interface (or via a port replicator)?

From a functioning windows system of this type, can you tell me the vendor ID and device ID of this network adapter? You can see this in the device manager -> <network device> -> Properties -> hardware IDs.

There is something on on here that I don’t understand. The 7220 should get an IP address here.

[sidebar] What we did by waiting 30 seconds and then attempting to pull a dhcp address is to test to see if spanning tree was blocking the target computer from getting an IP address. 30 seconds is long enough for standard spanning tree to start forwarding data.

The Dealman

@george1421 No spanning tree enable on this network. Here is the Hardware ID info

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1N-_V4eoJUOzo-CSwcoG_jS6aIb3jGcpN/view?usp=sharing

george1421

@The-Dealman Is that the usb-c to ethernet dongle?

model DBQBCBC064
ref: https://www.staples.com/Dell-DBQBCBC064-USB-Type-C-to-Ethernet-Network-Adapter/product_IM13F8416?cid=PS:GooglePLAs:IM13F8416&ci_src=17588969&ci_sku=IM13F8416&KPID=IM13F8416&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIzrvswsW06wIVUb7ACh09JQVbEAQYAiABEgJfz_D_BwE

The Dealman

@george1421 Yes it is usb-c. It’s one of these https://www.dell.com/en-us/work/shop/dell-docking-station-wd19-180w/apd/210-ariq/pc-accessories

george1421

@The-Dealman ok its a wd19. I know those work with a 7400. I have one of those in front of me now (both wd19 and 7400), let me look at the bios settings. now.

george1421

@george1421 In the 7400 firmware System Configuration->Thunderbolt configuration

Thunderbolt: Checked
Enable Thunderbolt Boot: checked
No Security: Checked

Secure boot->Secure boot: disabled

General ->Advanced boot options -> enable uefi network stack: enabled.

These are probably right because you are getting into ipxe. I’m going to pxe boot using this dock to see if I can duplicate the same error you see.

Dell 7000 series laptops pxe booting

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