Chainloading failed / boot looping

[Sebastian Roth]

@george1421 said:

I do have a 7010 that I will setup in a few minutes to test efi booting.

You’ve already done some debugging on this! See in the discussion Wayne posted. I don’t think we’ll get this working other than keep on adding debugging and trying to talk to the ipxe devs!

[george1421]

@Sebastian-Roth Ugh, I remember that time now…

I can say that iPXE booting on the 7010 with A18 firmware still does not work. I do see there is an A21 bios out there where the change log mentions fixing uefi booting. I will give that update a shot later this morning. I can say that the FOS Live usb boot drive does work without issue with the 7010.

[george1421]

Still no joy with the 7010 and the A21 firmware efi booting either snponly.efi or ipxe.efi. Both hang at initializing devices after receiving the ipxe boot loader.

[Wayne Workman]

@george1421 said:

Still no joy with the 7010 and the A21 firmware

Dell really screwed up on this one.

[gwhitfield]

I checked the VM was set to E1000 and EFI booting. When I enter the URL I get the following:

#!ipxe
set fog-ip 192.168.1.53
set fog-webroot fog
set boot-url http://${fog-ip}/${fog-webroot}
#!ipxe
cpuid --ext 29 && set arch x86_64 || set arch i386
iseq ${platform} efi && set key 0x1b || set key 0x1b
iseq ${platform} efi && set keyName ESC || set keyName Escape
prompt --key ${key} --timeout 3000 Booting… (Press ${keyName} to access the menu) && goto menuAccess || chain -ar ${boot-url}/service/ipxe/grub.exe --config-file=“rootnoverify (hd0);chainloader +1”
:menuAccess
login
params
param mac0 ${net0/mac}
param arch ${arch}
param platform ${platform}
param username ${username}
param password ${password}
param menuaccess 1
param debug 1
isset ${net1/mac} && param mac1 ${net1/mac} || goto bootme
isset ${net2/mac} && param mac2 ${net2/mac} || goto bootme
:bootme
chain -ar http://192.168.1.53/fog/service/ipxe/boot.php##params

Thank you all for helping out. Sorry I couldn’t get back to reply earlier than this!

[gwhitfield]

Another thought I had was that we also use MDT for creating images that can be put on a boot flash. I have no problem with booting the 7010 UEFI using the MDT boot files. I was able to deploy a .wim file yesterday with no issues. I’m inexperienced with the process and the files but I’m wondering if there isn’t a boot file that we can pull from the MDT process and add it to the FOG repository?

[Wayne Workman]

@gwhitfield It’s missing kernel parameters.

[gwhitfield]

@Wayne-Workman said:

@gwhitfield It’s missing kernel parameters.

Sorry to appear dense, but I don’t know what the output SHOULD look like, nor what to do to get it that way. I’m handicapped by a lack of in-depth knowledge on how it works. I apologize if I have missed a how-to I suppose?

[Wayne Workman]

@gwhitfield Heres what mine looks like.

Keep in mind, this iPXE script is generated dynamically based on the parameters passed to it (the mac addresses of the computer). I didn’t pass any parameters to the page, which is why the script says item --gap Host is NOT registered!

What version of FOG are you using now? Did you upgrade to trunk as suggested?

#!ipxe
set fog-ip 10.2.1.11
set fog-webroot fog
set boot-url http://${fog-ip}/${fog-webroot}
cpuid --ext 29 && set arch x86_64 || set arch i386
goto get_console
:console_set
colour --rgb 0x00567a 1 ||
colour --rgb 0x00567a 2 ||
colour --rgb 0x00567a 4 ||
cpair --foreground 7 --background 2 2 ||
goto MENU
:alt_console
cpair --background 0 1 ||
cpair --background 1 2 ||
goto MENU
:get_console
console --picture http://10.2.1.11/fog/service/ipxe/bg.png --left 100 --right 80 && goto console_set || goto alt_console
:MENU
menu
colour --rgb 0xff0000 0 ||
cpair --foreground 1 1 ||
cpair --foreground 0 3 ||
cpair --foreground 4 4 ||
item --gap Host is NOT registered!
item --gap -- -------------------------------------
item fog.local Boot from hard disk
item fog.memtest Run Memtest86+
item fog.reginput Perform Full Host Registration and Inventory
item fog.reg Quick Registration and Inventory
item fog.quickimage Quick Image
item fog.multijoin Join Multicast Session
item fog.sysinfo Client System Information (Compatibility)
choose --default fog.local --timeout 5000 target && goto ${target}
:fog.local
sanboot --no-describe --drive 0x80 || goto MENU
:fog.memtest
kernel memdisk iso raw
initrd memtest.bin
boot || goto MENU
:fog.reginput
kernel bzImage32 loglevel=4 initrd=init_32.xz root=/dev/ram0 rw ramdisk_size=127000 keymap= web=10.2.1.11/fog/ conosoleblank=0 loglevel=4 mode=manreg
imgfetch init_32.xz
boot || goto MENU
:fog.reg
kernel bzImage32 loglevel=4 initrd=init_32.xz root=/dev/ram0 rw ramdisk_size=127000 keymap= web=10.2.1.11/fog/ conosoleblank=0 loglevel=4 mode=autoreg
imgfetch init_32.xz
boot || goto MENU
:fog.quickimage
login
params
param mac0 ${net0/mac}
param arch ${arch}
param username ${username}
param password ${password}
param qihost 1
isset ${net1/mac} && param mac1 ${net1/mac} || goto bootme
isset ${net2/mac} && param mac2 ${net2/mac} || goto bootme
:fog.multijoin
login
params
param mac0 ${net0/mac}
param arch ${arch}
param username ${username}
param password ${password}
param sessionJoin 1
isset ${net1/mac} && param mac1 ${net1/mac} || goto bootme
isset ${net2/mac} && param mac2 ${net2/mac} || goto bootme
:fog.sysinfo
kernel bzImage32 loglevel=4 initrd=init_32.xz root=/dev/ram0 rw ramdisk_size=127000 keymap= web=10.2.1.11/fog/ conosoleblank=0 loglevel=4 mode=sysinfo
imgfetch init_32.xz
boot || goto MENU
:bootme
chain -ar http://10.2.1.11/fog/service/ipxe/boot.php##params ||
goto MENU
autoboot

[gwhitfield]

What version of FOG are you using now? Did you upgrade to trunk as suggested?

Ubuntu 14.04.4, FOG 1.2.0, rev 6365. I didn’t update yet but plan to as soon as I can today. I neglected to mention that I did have a positive UEFI boot and was able to upload from and re-deploy a test image to a Dell E5550 a few days ago using snponly.efi so I thought maybe I’ve just changed something accidentally since then that would be simple to identify.

[Wayne Workman]

@gwhitfield Have you watched all the movies in the “Tremors” franchise?

[george1421]

The root if the issue here is (the Dell 7010). The 7010 will not completely boot the iPXE kernel. This is needed for FOG to function correctly. Its not an issue with FOG, but a compatibility issue between a component that FOG uses (iPXE) and the Dell 7010 EFI firmware. When you MDT boot you can use either cdrom or usb flash drive. This process doesn’t use iPXE so I would expect this to work. I can also boot the 7010 into the FOG Live debugger using a usb (similar to the way MDT boots). But again this doesn’t use iPXE to boot.

What needs to happen.

1. Dell fixes their silly firmware
2. The iPXE guys can work out a method to patch iPXE to work around this issue.
3. You switch back to BIOS booting for this hardware platform.

[gwhitfield]

@Wayne-Workman -only saw the first one, enjoyed it immensely for no good reason.

[Wayne Workman]

@gwhitfield said:

I neglected to mention that I did have a positive UEFI boot and was able to upload from and re-deploy a test image to a Dell E5550 a few days ago using snponly.efi

https://www.youtube.com/embed/iWo14lBhXWc

[gwhitfield]

When you MDT boot you can use either cdrom or usb flash drive. This process doesn’t use iPXE so I would expect this to work.

I’m fairly certain I PXE booted the 7010 UEFI using WDS to deploy the MDT image. Only reason I’m uncertain at all is simply how many different imaging related projects I have going on… I will be able to test/confirm later today or tomorrow.

[Wayne Workman]

@gwhitfield said:

I’m fairly certain I PXE booted the 7010 UEFI using WDS to deploy the MDT image.

WDS doesn’t use iPXE.

[gwhitfield]

@Wayne-Workman - Ahhh…they appeared similar enough in the netboot phase that I got the impression it was the same technology. I been duped.

[gwhitfield]

@Wayne-Workman said:

https://www.youtube.com/embed/iWo14lBhXWc

Oh sht that’s funny!!!
#1- I gotta see that movie again. It feels like 20 years since…
#2 - I apologize. I know just enough to be dangerous and under the circumstances sometimes it’s hard to know what’s relevant to the discussion much less what’s important.

[Wayne Workman]

@gwhitfield There are 5 of them now. They are all worth watching, in order, with the wife/gf.

[gwhitfield]

@Wayne-Workman said:

@gwhitfield It’s missing kernel parameters.

I upgraded to trunk and no change. I was hoping the kernel parameters issue would be resolved automagically since I never intentionally made any changes to anything except putting different efi boot file names in DHCP. I looked and can tell there’s tons of info on kernel parameters and editing the boot menu but isn’t there a default setup that should be in place with a re-install? Do I need to edit something now?