Continued testing:

e6410: UEFI not available.
e6420: UEFI available, UEFI pxe booting not allowed. Boot via efi flash drive using the debug ipxe.efi no problem.
e6430: UEFI available, UEFI pxe booting allowed. Booting either via PXE or generated debug messages (same as 7010. Also noted the 6430 and 7010 where purchased the same year).
e7440: UEFI available, UEFI pxe booting allowed. Booted correctly with either PXE or USB
e7240: UEFI available, UEFI pxe booting allowed. Booted correctly with either PXE or USB

OK, so I started digging into the details of the 7010 and the 6340 then comparing them to the 790 and 6420. The thing (from the spec sheet) that is in common between the 7010/6430 is the chip set with Q77/QM77 respectively. The 790/6420 has the Q65/QM67. I thought the graphics were the same between the two but on the 7010 we have the Intel HD4000 (integrated) and on the 6430 we have Nvidia Nvs 5200. All four systems use the intel 82579LM ethernet nic.

@Sebastian-Roth Sorry to get you excited. I see I should have been clearer with my table.

UEFI pxe booting no == PXE booting in UEFI mode is not supported.

The only system that failed to boot via ipxe.efi is the 7010. All others that supported UEFI will boot the debug version either via USB or PXE (where available)

So the question I have now is, what is physically different between a o790 and o7010 ??? I’m finding it less likely that its a nic issue since both the 790 990 and 7010 use the same intel nic.

Testing so far as follows:

o780: UEFI not available.
o790: UEFI available, UEFI pxe booting no. Was able to boot via efi flash drive using the debug ipxe.efi no problem. FWIW: The o790 uses the same NIC as the o7010 (82579LM).
o990: UEFU available, UEFI pxe booting no. Same results as 790
o7010: UEFI available, UEFI pxe booting yes. Booting either via PXE or generated debug messages.
o9020: UEFI available, UEFI pxe booting yes. Booted correctly with either PXE or USB

I didn’t test any laptops for UEFI booting.

Here is the output from the efibootmgr. Nothing spectacular was found.
0_1448455704315_efibootmgr_v.txt

If I have time today, I’ll go through the computers in the devices lab to see if there are other computers in our fleet that have issues with efi booting. We have a US national holiday Thursday and Friday this week, so if its not done today it will have to wait.

I’m wondering 2 things here.

First, if you use another computer can you use tftp client to download that file. We want to make sure the permissions on that boot file is not blocking access. You can use another linux computer or a windows computer if you install the tftp client (built in to windows 7+).

Second, it worked with undionly.kpxe and now with the ipxe.efi it doesn’t. Make sure there is not a blank space on either side of the text in the dhcp server configuration. I’m not seeing anything strange in the pcap files you supplied.

I don’t think this is just a Dell 7010 issue (even though I’ve had issues with this model and certain add in cards) it probably more a bridge interface causing the issue. I’m suspecting that there are quite a few models that were created with this bridge interface since we have two manufactures today with the same issue (Lenovo, Dell).

@Sebastian-Roth No problem, I’ll be back at work in about 2 hours. What ever you need, just let me know.

Based on my limited experience with UEFI, IF the bios is in UEFI mode and the legacy ROMS are disabled in the bios AND secure boot is turned off. If these conditions are met then you enter the bios with the USB NIC installed and can see the USB NIC in the selectable devices for booting then that USB NIC should be supported for UEFI booting.

You should be able to press F12 during the bios post test to bring up the boot menu, from there you should be able to select the USB network adapter for booting, it should be in the UEFI section of the boot menu not under BIOS. Again if these conditions are met you must use the ipxe (boot kernel) that ends in efi. Now there may need to be a specific one for that usb driven NIC, you would see this after the file has been downloaded to the target computer as the kernel boots, you may get network communication issues.

@Sebastian-Roth I followed your instructions for creating a uefi boot drive. The creation process worked like a charm. Once the directory structure and file inserted on the flash drive, the usb drive was available in the bios as a viable uefi boot device. Selecting the flash drive from the boot menu worked (the selection process).

BUT the system was in the same state as pxe booting the device. So no luck for us, we have the same results. The positive note is that now we know its NOT a PXE issue.

My setup wasn’t so old school. 8GB cruzer fit formatted with fat32. Then the folders created with one of the .efi files from this thread.

@jbsclm said:

@x9rok
It is some while since I last used it, but from what I remember, if there was no task for the PC you should get the FOG menu, which would then time out after the period set in the FOG GUI, if you didn’t select an option.
If you don’t get the FOG menu then it may be that the ipxe script needs changing to pass extra parameters to boot.php.

OP: From my post below the boot.php script is looking for the mac parameter to be passed to it. Without that I might understand why you are getting a different reaction.

http://${nextserver}/fog/service/ipxe/boot.php?mac=${net0/mac}

@Tom-Elliott said:

@szecca1 I don’t think @george1421 means a “conflict” in the terms of IP Addressing, but rather in logic.

Tom is right on, I was focusing on the logic of what you were saying which lead me to the duplicate IP address conclusion. Maybe I need to choose my words a bit better too.

While I don’t offer to do this very often, but since we have a similar virtualization environment, I can create a VM with FOG running on Centos 6.7. Assuming your boss will allow, I can export the vm and you can upload it to your ESXi platform. The only issue I have is if can I make the VM small enough to get it to you vi my dropbox.

I’m still seeing a conflict here. But lets run with it.

The console is frozen (which might indicate the vm has crashed because the console is isolated from any running application like FOG. Even if something was consuming 100% of the CPU the console should still respond, although slowly). Assuming that the vm client has hung, the network stack is still operational (which is responding to a ping). Based on my experience this is a unique situation that should not be.

Lets see if we can acquire a bit more info. Looking at the ESXi console (not the vSphere Web interface accessed by a browser) when that VM is unresponsive is the vm tools reporting to ESXi correctly (summary tab). Is that VM posting any alerts to ESXi (alarms tab). When the vm is in this lost state what does the Consumed Host CPU value show (Summary tab)? Is it high, low, or about the same as when its working correctly? There has to be some external indication that this server has gone away.

I’m still have the feeling that you might have a machine with the same address out there causing problem. That would explain the FOG server dropping off the network (hanging) but still pingable. Plus this is a new installation and not something that has been in place for a while. All other VMs are running without issue on the same hypervisor, All of this is making me think there is some external source at play here. Understand this is just an attempt to read the tea leaves based on what you’ve said this far.

Sorry for being difficult here.

I see a contraindication in your statement as I read it.

1. You would not able to access the console using the vSphere client (suggesting that the vm client was frozen/hung)
2. We were able to ping the server just fine during this process. (tells me while the console was hung, the vm client was pingable ???)

I’m still trying to drive to the root either the server (vm client) is hanging or the virtual NIC is hanging/off line)

@szecca1 No worries, this is only my narrow view of how the world should work. Reinstalling is not a requirement or even a recommendation. It just makes supporting 8 different OS flavors (times the number of versions per flavor) a bit difficult to have so many to support.

When the server goes down: I may be using a tool you don’t have access to. I can access all of my VMs from a vSphere Client. This is a tool I can run on my desktop computer to access the vmware servers. It allows me to access the console of each VM like if it was a physical server connected to a keyboard and monitor. This is a built in fuction to vSphere so every install has this possibility. Now vmware recommends to the vSphere Web interface, but the vSphere Client still works. Having access to this will tell us if the server/vm is freezing or just the network has going off-line. This console access would also allow us to inspect the event logs before the server is rebooted.

One comment here. You don’t need to change the boot order to the USB. Most systems will let you temporarly change the boot order by pressing F12 or F10 during the bios post test. From there you can select your boot media. This is a one time change. On the next reboot (unless you press the boot menu key again) it will return to the normal boot sequence.
.

Well trying to install centos 7 on a new out of box hard drive didn’t work I received the same error (something unknown happened). I might have an issue with the install media.

Taking a different approach, I downloaded and booting ubuntu 15.10 desktop. The installer had a live option so I booted successfully into that. I run zorin on my home laptop so I thought that ubuntu woudn’t be that foreign to me. Well, its kind of like traveling to the UK for holiday. (While we kind of speak the same language, there is just enough differences to get into trouble quick).

With that said here is the output of the lspci with different options.

lspci -vv (very verbose)
0_1448370335531_o7010vv.txt

lspci -k (kernel level drivers)
0_1448370353360_o7010k.txt

lspci -vn (verbose with hardware numbers and not names)
0_1448370383197_o7010n.txt

@Wayne-Workman said:

Fedora Server is a server OS. They have three different versions: workstation, server, and cloud.

I would also point out that Windows 7 uses the same kernel as Windows Server 2008 R2.

Well color me red (hat) and call me embarrassed (to a point), mea culpa.

Traditionally the fedora brand was the rapid development OS for redhat with many new/advanced functions. Some of those features would end up in rhel (centos) and some features would just disappear. With the rapid development cycles you may get a new version every few months (which is NOT what you need for a server OS). Some companies have regulations about NOT using outdated or unpatched software (including the OS). If you built your servers based on Fedora (any version of a rapid development OS) you would be in a continual update cycle just to stay current and within policy. That is why rhel, centos, ubuntu lts are all long term supported OS’. To give companies a stable and supported OS platform. Does this mean you shouldn’t use Fedora for a OS, no. A lot depends on your company’s regulations. Just because you CAN install MS SQL server on Win7, doesn’t mean you should. (If I remember MS’ Windows 7 EULA you are not allowed to use a desktop OS in a server role)

@Sebastian-Roth said:

So I guess this is more a UEFI/OptiPlex issue than a NIC issue.

This is what I was thinking. While it might appear to be a nic issue, it could also be another component pre nic setup.

I have downloaded Ubuntu 15 and will try to install on this Dell. I tried yesterday with Centos 7 and it kept crashing. I’m suspecting that its the hard drive that I was trying to use (not wanting to mess up the existing install), I just grabbed a disk from my bench and tried to install.

When I get to work in 2 hours I’ll see what happens and update you.

For clarity I run FOG under centos running on ESXi 5.5. I don’t have this kind of issue.

I know this was a long thread and I kind of skimmed it.

When you setup your linux server you should set the network adapter to e1000, you can use vmxnet3 if you install the vmware tools first. Its always has been a pain to do so I just use the e1000 driver. I seem to recall a bug with the e1000 driver with either the GA release of 5.0 or 5.5 that caused the virtual nic to hang under heavy load. That issue was fixed with a ESXi update. Is you ESXi server up to date with patches?

Please help me understand you say you can’t access the FOG server. I understand if you can’t access it via the network, can you log into the console directly using vmware configuration client? Or is the vmclient frozen? If you can log in from the console then I would sure check the logs in /var/logs to see if there is any indication of what happened. I would also try to restart the network services (from inside the fedora OS) to see if you can get it back online. I have see where two hosts having the same IP address will take a server off line like this.

It would be interesting to see what happens to this vm if you shutdown all FOG services at the end of the day. Is the VM still on the network in the AM?

[soapbox] While I understand the techie needs to run fedora, why are you using a desktop OS instead of a server OS? Would you load MS SQL server on Windows 7 for your enterprise application? Please pick stable rhel or centos over fedora. Yes I know it works, but why not use the right tool for the job.[/soapbox]

@Sebastian-Roth

I’m trying to remember the history with these Dells. It was either the 7010 or the 9020 we got hung up on with Windows deployment because the WinPE 2.0 environment didn’t have the drivers for the nic. We needed to upgrade to the next WinPE environment for it to have the drivers.

IPXE boot iso. I think the rom-o-matic had the option to create an iso image as well as a usb image. Im just wondering if the e1000 driver doesn’t support this intel nic. I have an older/different intel nic in this box in an expansion slot and that must not support uefi booting because I can’t select that card. I’m going to work on the linux/FreeBSD booting in uefi mode later tonight. Maybe I can glean more info on what hardware is installed.

@Sebastian-Roth No luck with the 32 bit version. It starts to load and then just kicks back to the Dell UEFI boot menu. I’m going to have to work on this later tonight. I’m learning more about uefi than I care to right now.

For a uefi boot from cdrom or usb flash drive the system must detect the uefi bits on the media or it won’t boot. That is why I can’t boot puppy linux via the uefi menu.