Boot pxe from partition instead of USB

[RTOadmin]

Hi,

is it possible to make a small partition with the grub pxe on every mac instead of pluging in a USB?

Did someone tried this?

If it is possible in OS X to hide the partition I think this would be the best way to boot iMacs…

thank you
Mathew

[Sebastian Roth]

@RTOadmin I have not done it myself but would say it should be possible. Just deploy to a test machine and manually play with a boot partition.

Maybe this article is of help to you: https://wiki.fogproject.org/wiki/index.php?title=FOG_on_a_MAC#Using_bless (just use bless to point to the iPXE binary on your disk)

[RTOadmin]

Hi,
thank you for repleing.

I tried to boot form a FAT32 Partition with the grub form my working USB bootstick. I copied the files to the FAT32 Partition and booted form it with the following error

app.efi: LocateProtocoll(AppleLogging) succeeded
error: no such partition

Do you have a hint for me?

Kind regards
Mathew

[Sebastian Roth]

@RTOadmin said in Boot pxe from partition instead of USB:

… and booted form it with the following error

How exactly did you tell the Mac to boot from that partition?

[RTOadmin]

I made a partition in os X and formated it with FAT32, then i copied the stuff of my BootUSB to the partition. After this on botting the partition is shown as EFIboot.
When I select this FAT32 EFIboot the error will be shown.

I think it could be a Problem with the masterboot record? but I dont have the experience to fix it.
Do think this could be the Problem?
Thank you

[Sebastian Roth]

@RTOadmin What does the file and directory structure in that new partition look like?

[RTOadmin]

@Sebastian-Roth

It is the same as on my USB-Sticks. I only copied the content of the USB to the FAT Partition

[Sebastian Roth]

@RTOadmin Please mount the partition, run ls -alR /mnt/... and post output here. With more eyes looking at this we might find if this is just a minor typo issue.

[Sebastian Roth]

@RTOadmin Do you still need further assistance on this topic?

[RTOadmin]

@Sebastian-Roth said in Boot pxe from partition instead of USB:

https://wiki.fogproject.org/wiki/index.php?title=FOG_on_a_MAC#Using_bless

I understand the bless comand but will this not change the boot partition permanently? I dont have a problem to boot from the right partion.

Hi,

no I have the time to deal with this problem again.

Again further details how I have done it:

1. made a fat 32 partition in my intel iMac
2. copied all the files from my working USB-Boot-Stick to the partition
3. Started the mac by holding the option key
4. No I could choice the boot partition (my new Fat 32 boot partition with all files from the working usb-boot-stick)
5. got the eror:
   app.efi: LocateProtocoll(AppleLogging) succeeded
   error: no such partition

could it be that there have to be done other work that the fat32 boot partition will find the exact file to boot.
I have made the USB-boot sticks with Rufus. I dont kow if there were made changes by rufus.

thank you very much.
Mathew