iPXE discussion forum

Hi all,

I'm a bit confused with what I need to do to make things work with both UEFI and BIOS. I don't have a DHCP server that's capable of presenting different options based on BIOS/UEFI - just the next server and image filename.

Some reading indicates that I might be able to get around this by embedding the script when building - would that script then handle differing images for UEFI/BIOS? If so, what do I use for the boot image in the DHCP configuration?

In case I'm going about this in the completely wrong way, here's what I'm looking to ultimately accomplish:

• Machine (either UEFI or BIOS) boots from network
• Menu option to chain to a local WDS server
• Several menu options to boot Windows Server ISOs (aside from what's available in WDS). From reading, I understand that this might be wimboot?
• Menu options to boot from a few Linux utility discs - mainly just clonezilla
  

I'd like to not have to rebuild the image every time I add an iso so I was thinking I could embed a script that does nothing but chain to a config file on a server that I can edit when needed and essentially not need to touch the built image unless I want to rebuild it with a new version of iPXE later.

Appreciate any help on this.

You need different binaries for the different platforms.
The only way to do this is for the DHCP server to detect the arch flag and send the correct binary from there.
As long as you have a DHCP server that can send different binaries for the arch option, then you can have the same embedded script in both binaries that chains to a next stage script over http or tftp which has your menu.

Which DHCP server are you using?

One other note since you mention booting ISOs - don't - that approach is a dead end, make sure you understand why ISOs don't work as boot source directly before spending to much time on it.

Appreciate such a quick reply. I'm using DHCP that's embedded in a firewall. I'd have to move it to a server with the firewall I'm using, which wouldn't be a major problem. I'm not sure I even need non-UEFI support at this point anyway.

Thanks for the tip about booting an ISO. I'll read up on that before proceeding.

(2019-02-03 16:00)k_rock923 Wrote: [ -> ]Appreciate such a quick reply. I'm using DHCP that's embedded in a firewall. I'd have to move it to a server with the firewall I'm using, which wouldn't be a major problem. I'm not sure I even need non-UEFI support at this point anyway.

Thanks for the tip about booting an ISO. I'll read up on that before proceeding.

Is it a well known firewall?
One other approach is to disable the boot options on that dhcp and then only run a proxydhcp server on a different machine (that provides tftp server address and filename)