IPXE Error: No configuration methods succeeded

[george1421]

@Gary-Kulovics A screen shot of the actually error would be helpful to know exactly where in the process its failing.

What model of dell laptop are we talking about here?

The network port where this target computer is plugged in, do you have spanning tree enabled on that switch port, if you do are you using one of the fast spanning tree protocols (port-fast, fast-stp, rstp, [or the other one I can’t remember immediately])?

If you place once of those small unmanaged “cheapie” switches between the building switch and the target computer does it boot correctly?

If your target computer is in bios (legacy) mode then you will want undionly-(k)kpxe. That has worked on every dell device I have in my fleet.

[Gary Kulovics]

@george1421

The models have tried it on are 5420 and the 5550
Have tried to image it from the switch that the server is on and still get that error and yes spanning tree is enabled with the correct protocols Am using the undionly.kkpxe file and everything worked fine yesterday not sure what happened overnight

Thanks
Gary

[Gary Kulovics]

@george1421 Have just tired the 5550 and changed the bios to UEFI with secure boot off and for some reason that worked Changed back to bios (legacy) mode and got the above problem So not sure what is going on. Any settings that can be changed?

Thanks
Gary

[george1421]

@Gary-Kulovics Ok from the screen shot, I can see that the iPXE kernel is getting to the target computer and its booting so that removes PXE, tftp, and the boot file from the equation.

Can you confirm that mac address d0:67:e5:3d:59:b4 is the mac address of the ethernet adapter in that laptop?

This error really points to an issue with spanning tree in that its not picking up its (the iPXE kernel) from dhcp. As I suggested before, if you could test this idea by putting a dumb switch between the building switch and the target computer. This dumb switch will keep the building switch port from transitioning during the booting process.

Just for some background here. The link light on the target computer will wink (momentarily turn off and then back on) as the target computer transitions between each stage of booting PXE Rom->iPXE Kernel and iPXE Kernel->FOS Kernel. If spanning tree is on and one of the fast protocols are not used, the switch will take up to 27 seconds to put the port into a forwarding state. The FOG booting process is so fast that it has already given up when the switch port decides to start forwarding traffic. This is what we generally see.

[george1421]

@Gary-Kulovics said in IPXE Error: No configuration methods succeeded:

@george1421 Have just tired the 5550 and changed the bios to UEFI with secure boot off and for some reason that worked Changed back to bios (legacy) mode and got the above problem So not sure what is going on. Any settings that can be changed?

Luck of the draw? For uefi booting you need to change your boot file to ipxe.efi. This is the same kernel (more or less) as undionly.kpxe except it is compiled for uefi mode.

[Gary Kulovics]

@george1421
Hi George
Yes the MAC address is the correct
Have put a dumb switch between the building switch and the PC and still am getting the same error
Anyway we can slow down the Fog booting process?

Thanks Gary

[Gary Kulovics]

@Tom-Elliott
Hi Tom
Looks like you were right
Installed Wireshark and found that a printer installed by Xerox was causing the problem Killed the port it was on and Fog is now working

Thanks guys for all your help

Thanks
Gary

[Wayne Workman]

@Gary-Kulovics said in IPXE Error: No configuration methods succeeded:

Installed Wireshark and found that a printer installed by Xerox was causing the problem Killed the port it was on and Fog is now working

I’d like to hear more information about that. What was this printer doing? Can you share the packet capture?

[Gary Kulovics]

@Wayne-Workman Hi Wayne
The printer was (nobody knows why)responsing to the Fog sever request for the tftp boot file Xerox is in next week and hopefully they can shed some light on it Unfortunally did not take a capture of packets with wire shark if it happens again will do it Again thanks for all your help guys

Gary

[larosejm]

I get the same exact error, every time, for every machine and then after rebooting once, it works every time. This just happened all of a sudden. Wireshark doesn’t see any tftp servers.

[george1421]

@larosejm I’d like you to start a new thread with this issue. This thread started with an older version of FOG. We need to capture your specific details as how you have fog setup and under what host OS (i.e. things that are specific to your setup).