iPXE iso vs iPXE FOG

george1421

@scott-b OK I’m a bit lost here where the problem is and if you have been able to overcome the issue.

So lets go back and restate the problem.

When I attempt to pxe boot the Asus P8H61-M motherboard using iPXE from FOG 1.5.9 in bios mode it fails at initializing devices… ?
When I use the same conditions but pxe boot in uefi mode it fails at initializing devices…
I can download ipxe.iso and burn it to a usb stick and it works
I use the FOG buildipxe.sh and rebuild ipxe boot loaders and it fails with initializing devices…
The version of iPXE from the ipxe.iso and what was build with buildipxe.sh is the same.

I just remade a new iPXE USB from the iso file and it reports iPXE 1.21.1+ (g85d17)

I don’t understand this statement how did you make a new iPXE USB from the iso. Just for clarity you did not compile the iso, but just used rufus or such to burn the iso to the usb?

Last question, you have only been able to boot ipxe completely with what version of iPXE (numbers in the square brackets)?

Scott B

@george1421 said in iPXE iso vs iPXE FOG:

Just for clarity you did not compile the iso, but just used rufus or such to burn the iso to the usb?
Last question, you have only been able to boot ipxe completely with what version of iPXE (numbers in the square brackets)?

Correct. I meant I used Rufus to burn the iso from ipxe’s website.

I was able to boot usb with (g85d17). But then that hands off to FOG which is using (g3efd)?

george1421

@scott-b said in iPXE iso vs iPXE FOG:

I was able to boot usb with (g85d17). But then that hands off to FOG which is using (g3efd)?

So 85d17 is from mid APR and the one from fog is much older.

Just so I understand when you ran the ./buildipxe.sh program that should have downloaded a current version of iPXE. So this should have been current as of the time you ran the script. I just ran the build script on my fog server and it did git the current ipxe build files.

[Edit] I did see that the buildipxe.sh script ONLY builds the efi version of the latest release. The bios versions did not get updated in my installer directory.

But then that hands off to FOG which is using (g3efd)?

This part has me a bit confused. How is this hand-off taking place. The iPXE from the cdrom should not know how unless you are typing in to chain load undionly.kpxe or ipxe.efi from the fog server directly from the boot usb drive (via the command line inside the iPXE shell). If you want to test chain loading chain load to your fog server and boot default.ipxe file. That will chain you into FOG installer.

george1421

@george1421 Following up on this a bit. After running the buildipxe.sh script I found that only the ipxe.efi files were updated in ../fogproject/packages/tftp directory. Digging into the script a bit more I found on my Cento 7 fog server there were some dependencies missing to properly build iPXE.

To get the complete iPXE files updated I needed to add the following centos packages.

yum install genisoimage  syslinux xz-devel -y

Then rerun the buildipxe.sh script. Once that was done I confirmed all of the iPXE files in ../fogproject/packages/tftp were correct.

FWIW the fog installer script ../bin/installfog.sh copies the files from ../fogproject/packages/tftp to the /tftpboot directory during installation.

Scott B

@george1421 said in iPXE iso vs iPXE FOG:

This part has me a bit confused. How is this hand-off taking place.

Here is a short video of booting from the ipxe iso. It will boot with (g85d17) then about the 7-second mark (g3efd) is loaded before successfully dropping me off at my fog menu.

https://youtu.be/wrkTdMxKQK4

george1421

@scott-b Ok I see and understand what its doing. Basically its booting from the flash drive then the newer version of iPXE is querying dhcp to get the next-server and boot-file name, then it chains to it. Handy but not what you need.

Lets circle back to what I found when I was rebuilding iPXE using the current verison (that appears where you need to be since that newer version of iPXE works)

Will you look into the git repo you downloaded to install FOG in ../fogproject/packages/tftp and see if all of the file dates are current (as of when you ran the buildipxe.sh scripts)? You can view the file dates with ls -la in that tftp directory.

Scott B

@george1421 said in iPXE iso vs iPXE FOG:

Will you look into the git repo you downloaded to install FOG in …/fogproject/packages/tftp and see if all of the file dates are current (as of when you ran the buildipxe.sh scripts)? You can view the file dates with ls -la in that tftp directory.

I ran through the build process again and here is the output. Most all the dates are from today.

drwxr-xr-x 5 root root    4096 Dec 11 18:20 .
drwxr-xr-x 8 root root    4096 Jun  1  2020 ..
drwxr-xr-x 4 root root    4096 Dec 11 18:20 10secdelay
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root    4096 Dec 11 18:20 arm64-efi
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root     868 Jun  1  2020 boot.txt
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root    4096 Dec 11 18:20 i386-efi
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  248896 Apr 28 13:43 intel.efi
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root   99833 Apr 28 13:42 intel.kkpxe
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root   99881 Apr 28 13:42 intel.kpxe
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root   99849 Apr 28 13:42 intel.pxe
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1047040 Apr 28 13:43 ipxe.efi
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  892928 Apr 28 13:42 ipxe.iso
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  359292 Apr 28 13:42 ipxe.kkpxe
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  359340 Apr 28 13:42 ipxe.kpxe
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  358889 Apr 28 13:42 ipxe.krn
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  358889 Apr 28 13:42 ipxe.lkrn
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  359438 Apr 28 13:42 ipxe.pxe
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  376832 Apr 28 13:42 ipxe.usb
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root   26140 Jun  1  2020 memdisk
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  278976 Apr 28 13:43 ncm--ecm--axge.efi
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  247808 Apr 28 13:43 realtek.efi
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  100572 Apr 28 13:42 realtek.kkpxe
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  100620 Apr 28 13:42 realtek.kpxe
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  100616 Apr 28 13:42 realtek.pxe
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  247232 Apr 28 13:43 snp.efi
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  247456 Apr 28 13:43 snponly.efi
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root   99305 Apr 28 13:42 undionly.kkpxe
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root   99353 Apr 28 13:42 undionly.kpxe
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root   99330 Apr 28 13:42 undionly.pxe

george1421

@scott-b So when you rerun the FOG installer and does the files in /tftpboot match the date of this list? If so you should be booting the latest version of iPXE

Scott B

@george1421 said in iPXE iso vs iPXE FOG:

@scott-b So when you rerun the FOG installer and does the files in /tftpboot match the date of this list? If so you should be booting the latest version of iPXE

All the files that are in /root/fogproject/packages/tftp/ are the same in /tftpboot for date and time.

george1421

@scott-b But pxe booting directly from the FOG server still gives us the old boot loaders? Something isn’t working as we know it should.

Scott B

@george1421 said in iPXE iso vs iPXE FOG:

Something isn’t working as we know it should.

I’m going to try and find a second PC with the same motherboard to test with but currently, they are all in service.

devercoder9

I was getting similar myself with the ipxe Rom hanging at “iPXE initializing devices”. The solution was to build a fresh undionly.kpxe (https://wiki.fogproject.org/wiki/index.php/IPXE#Compile).
Before you bake, modify general.h to comment out or remove the following lines:
#define DOWNLOAD_PROTO_HTTPS
#define IMAGE_TRUST_CMD
#define CERT_CMD
Then compile, and copy the rom to your tftp folder.

iPXE iso vs iPXE FOG

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