iPXE discussion forum

Hi there,

the good news first: I successfully flashed my first Intel Gigabit NIC with iPXE. - Good !

However, it was a bit of a drag. - Especially finding a download for IBAUtil, since the new Proboot requires tedious manual converting to .flb for flashing. - This took me a couple of hours to figure and find .

To anyone searching for IBAutil: You may extract a working version from this .iso: http://https://delivery04.dhe.ibm.com/sa..._32-64.iso. - Loop-Mount it or burn it on CD and then you find IBAUtil in the APPS/BOOTAGNT Directory. After getting IBAUtil, I could proceed according to http://http://etherboot.org/wiki/romburning/intel to flash the .rom image. This worked all straight forward .

Now I have one problem: Upon boot I get the iPXE start message (... press CTRL-B to configure). But I have to press CTRL-B to activate iPXE on every single boot. - Depending on the image I then issue the manual commands or use an embedded script. If I use "config" there appears nothing to configure automatic invocation - I seemingly need CTRL-B to activate iPXE.

What I do not know: Is the acitvation of iPXE-boot expected to come from the bios, or are there specific options to configure? If bios interaction is required, I suppose I'm doomed .

Background: The NIC is in a Neoware CA22 ThinClient with VIA chipset and evything "on board". There is no bios-option for network-boot except via the internal 100MBit NIC. But I have disabled the onboard NIC and its boot-rom in the bios, since I want to use the quicker Gigabit NIC. - That's the sole reason for this exercise.

Any hints are warmly welcome.

Thanks a lot!

Hegi.

(2017-09-16 18:52)hegi Wrote: [ -> ]Now I have one problem: Upon boot I get the iPXE start message (... press CTRL-B to configure). But I have to press CTRL-B to activate iPXE on every single boot. - Depending on the image I then issue the manual commands or use an embedded script. If I use "config" there appears nothing to configure automatic invocation - I seemingly need CTRL-B to activate iPXE.

What I do not know: Is the acitvation of iPXE-boot expected to come from the bios, or are there specific options to configure? If bios interaction is required, I suppose I'm doomed .

As with any boot ROM it is only there and the BIOS initializes the ROM. However actually booting it requires that it is the "next boot device" so changing the boot order in BIOS is what you want to do.

I would expect that If it fails to boot from disk (there is no harddrive) and no other working boot device, it will eventually reach your NIC and boot from that.

(2017-09-16 19:10)NiKiZe Wrote: [ -> ]As with any boot ROM it is only there and the BIOS initializes the ROM. However actually booting it requires that it is the "next boot device" so changing the boot order in BIOS is what you want to do.

Well, too bad, then I have to use the workaround via USB-Image. But the Bios does not offer network boot for other than the internal device .

If the CTRL-B Message shows up, then there is some sort of code that gets executed within the POST. - So I was hoping, from there the netboot could also be tweaked.

Anyhow, thanks a lot.

Hegi.

(2017-09-16 21:46)hegi Wrote: [ -> ]Well, too bad, then I have to use the workaround via USB-Image. But the Bios does not offer network boot for other than the internal device .

If the CTRL-B Message shows up, then there is some sort of code that gets executed within the POST. - So I was hoping, from there the netboot could also be tweaked.

Again check BOOT ORDER of your devices - this has nothing to do with "enable network boot" but rather which order of the devices.

There is 2 stages, first is "initialize rom and hook it up to be available" then there is "call device x for booting" if you would just boot in the first stage then you could end up with other devices not being initialized, so even if it would be allowed it should never be done.


So what actually happens when you have this ROM and no other boot device?
And what if you reset your bios to defaults and just boot, can it then be made to boot from the NIC you want to boot from? Maybe you can play around with just disabling some parts, for example disable the internal nic, but don't disable the boot rom. (do one change at a time after default and actual working config, and don't assume anything about the config options)

Hi NiKiZe,

(2017-09-16 21:54)NiKiZe Wrote: [ -> ]Again check BOOT ORDER of your devices - this has nothing to do with "enable network boot" but rather which order of the devices.

YES, but if the bios doesn't offer you the PCI network card as option, there's nothing you can really do here .

What I've done now is, that I wrote the ipxe.iso on the internal 128MB flash. I'd loved to use this otherwise, but that's about as elegant, as I can do under these circumstances .

As said earlier, the bios of this thinclient wasn't made for adding a quicker NIC at the only expansion slot ...

Cheers and have a nice rest-sunday

Stefan.

I see that you refuse to give information, try and understand your bios at all, or test the different options that could make a difference.

For any one else finding this:
Remove all other devices from the machine, if it has built in flash that boots which is not removable, make sure it has a bootloader that exits so it goes on to the next device.
And play around with all bios options. Some options do more than it says it should do, so in the case above having all nics and boot roms and able to see if that changes which other options becomes available after restart would be good thing.

And if all else fail, use appropiate ipxe.dsk to put on the disk and avoid unnecessary emulation by using the .iso version.