MacPro6,1 PXE boot
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I have a number of Mac Pro late 2013 models I’m trying to PXE boot, but can’t get it to work.
Pressing the Alt key on boot shows no network option. Have ipxe.efi in the Bootfile Name.
Anyone any ideas? Thanks
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Pretty sure you need to press and hold the N key for network boot.
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N doesn’t do anything, just normal boot.
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https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201255
According to that, Option+N -
OK. So holding N doesn’t boot to network, just to the OS. Option N I just get a flashing world icon. Are there any settings in FOG I am missing to get it to boot from the network?
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@chief Have you ever imaged a Mac with fog before? How old is this fog server? Has your fog server ever worked? What version of FOG are you running? What’s doing DHCP in your environment?
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No. First time testing a mac. Fog server on version 1.3.0-RC-36.
It works for PCs. DHCP is controlled by a windows 2012r2 server. -
@chief It’s probably not getting a valid efi file to boot with. Follow this guide to setup bios & uefi co-existence on your dhcp server: https://wiki.fogproject.org/wiki/index.php?title=BIOS_and_UEFI_Co-Existence
For a simple test, you can just change option 067 to
ipxe.efi- but don’t be a slacker and manually change it every time you need it, that’s lame. Use the above guide. -
@Wayne-Workman the option 067 is set to ipxe.efi at the moment.
Will set up like the guide. Do I just need to add PXEClient:Arch:00002 etc or others for a MAC?
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@chief said in MacPro6,1 PXE boot:
the option 067 is set to ipxe.efi at the moment.
If that’s the case - something else is wrong. We should probably do a packet capture on the fog server to see what it is seeing. Give me a minute and I’ll find the command.
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George, I’m stealing your post.
@george1421 said in PXE seems to work but Fog Cloning menu not displayed.:
OK I want you do this this process.
- Install tcpdump on your fog server.
- key in the following command on your fog server console.
tcpdump -w output.pcap port 67 or port 68 or port 69 or port 4011 - When tcpdump starts, then pxe boot your target computer until you reach the error.
- On your fog server press ctrl-c to exit the tcpdump program.
- Either review this pcap file in wireshark or post it here an I will take a look at it. If you don’t have enough credits the FOG Forum may keep you from uploading the pcap file here, so you will then need to use something like dropbox, box.com, or a google drive and share out the pcap file.
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Is the Mac connected to the network? (preferably via cable as PXE over wifi isn’t something I’m aware of as being possible with the netboot environment)
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I think the issue is with something else. The cable is connected. DHCP for OS working fine.
On booting a windows pc I get “No configration methods succeeded”
The pcap file on the windows pc booting is here
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1xRaaq2F0-JNUhXb3N2UTZSRm8/view?usp=sharing -
@chief All I see is two read requests for
undionly.kpxewhich is not what we should see if indeed your DHCP server’s option 067 is set toipxe.efibecause if it was, we would see requests for ipxe.efi and not undionly.kpxeDo you have more than one DHCP server in your environment? is dnsmasq running anywhere?
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I have changed the DHCP environment to bios and uefi. So this windows PC should boot to the bios undionly.kpxe
We only have one DHCP server. No dnsmasq
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@chief I also see only the tftp request. One is asking if the file exists and the second requesting the download of undionly.kpxe (which we know is only for bios based systems).
Is your dhcp server, fog server and booting target computer on the same subnet (vlan)? That is a requirement if you want the FOG server to listen in on the dhcp messages.
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I guess he could always just do a wireshark capture on the dhcp server.
I guess what would be the ultimate best is a third computer connected to the same computer network booting via a hub (not a switch). Just stick the hub between the target computer and the building’s network port, then use one of the hub’s spare ports to do a capture with. This will not work with a switch, only a hub would do it.
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It is going between subnets. From server to PC subnets/VLAN.
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@chief said in MacPro6,1 PXE boot:
It is going between subnets. From server to PC subnets/VLAN.
Is it possible for this test to get all three on the same subnet. We really need to the entire conversation here. If that isn’t possible, can you setup a wireshark system on the Mac/workstation subnet and collect a pcap of that workstation pxe booting. From this perspective we only need port
67 and port 68data. We know from the fog server that the file is being requested. We just need the part of the conversation that leads up to the request. -
@chief I am wondering if you are aware of the wiki article: https://wiki.fogproject.org/wiki/index.php/FOG_on_a_MAC
As you see there is a kind of special DHCP setup to be able to netboot MACs. There is more to it than simple DHCP - see here https://static.afp548.com/mactips/bootpd.html. I am not aware of windows DHCP server being able to do this.
A different approach would be to bless your MAC clients - setting to boot option to get a boot image from a hard coded TFTP server. Find a short description in the wiki article mentioned above.
