iPXE discussion forum

Hi Everyone,

This is my first post here on the forums, so let me just say thanks for providing this great software for free

I have an imac a1419,but is not have pxe boot rom,so i think to ipxe boot

I have to download ipxe.iso form http://boot.ipxe.org/ipxe.iso to save my usb disk

turn on my computer and boot form the usb disk

the computer indicates the following

isolinux 3.75 2009-04-16 etcd copyright © 1994-2009 h.....
ipe iso boot image
loading ipxe.krn..........ready
ipxe initialising devices ....ok

ipxe 1.0.0+ ---open source nework boot firmware --
features: http issi dns tftp aoe srp bzimage elf mboot pxe pext menu

no more network devices


the message if can't find the computer network card

so i using the same method on another computer (the computer integration a rtl8169 network card)

this ipxe boot is ok.

so i think in this ipxe.iso, no have imac a1419 network card drviers. imac a1419 integration a broadcom network card

so i want to ask you a question,how to add a new nic card drivers in to the ipxe.iso

i have to compile the source code,but i don't know the new nic card drivers should be placed where,and how to modify

the source code

who can teach me? thank you

If you downloaded ipxe.iso from boot.ipxe.org it should contain all drivers supported by iPXE. Most likely your iMac is using an unsupported network card. If you could figure out the PCI vendor/device ID for the card we might be able to figure out if it is trivial or very complicated to add support for your card. You can figure out these numbers using the lspci command in Linux.

hi robinsmidsrod

I really was downloaded ipxe.iso from http://www.ipxe.org

i used syslinux to maked a boot usbdisk

the syslinux.cfg The contents are as follows

LABEL boot from ipxe
LINUX memdisk
INITRD /ipxe.iso
APPEND iso raw


i Used this usbdisk in guide three computer

1--the one, motherboard is gigabyte g41 , integration a rtl811c network card.

used this usbdisk boot is ok


2--the other one, motherboard is asus h61 , integration a Atheros AR8151 network card .

used this usbdisk boot , show the message is "no more network devies"

this PCI vendor/device ID for the card is "PCI\VEN_1969&DEV_1083&SUBSYS_E0001458&REV_C0\4&3A0400F3&0&00E1"

this id message from windows xp Device manager


3--the last one is imac a1419 integration a "broadcom netxtreme gigabit ethernet" network card

used this usbdisk boot , show the message is "no more network devies"

this PCI vendor/device ID for the card is "PCI\VEN_14E4&DEV_1686&SUBSYS_0110106B&REV_01"

this id message from windows 7 device manager



besides:

i used The above id message to generated gpxe.iso in http://rom-o-matic.net/gpxe/gpxe-1.0.1/c...m-o-matic/

atheros ar8151 , input message is
Choose a NIC type: all-drivers
PCI VENDOR CODE: 1969
PCI DEVICE CODE: 1083

broadcom netxtreme gigabit ethernet , input message is
Choose a NIC type: all-drivers
PCI VENDOR CODE: 14E4
PCI DEVICE CODE: 1686


this gpxe.iso boot from usbdisk ,The results obtained is the same. show message is "no more network devies"


can you generated a ipxe.iso for me. to use boot from imac a1419

thank you

The Atheros AR8151 is not supported, but it might be close enough that adding a PCI_ROM() line in src/drivers/net/atl1e.c with the values 0x1969 and 0x1083, and recompile might work.

The Broadcom card is also not supported. In the same way you could add a PCI_ROM() line to src/drivers/net/tg3/tg3.c with values 0x14e4 and 0x1686.

If this actually works we should be able to add those IDs to the standard build. You'll need to run through the tests at http://ipxe.org/dev/driver to verify that all features work, though.

Also, rom-o-matic.net is for gPXE, it is not iPXE (the two are not the exactly the same, see http://ipxe.org/faq). If you want to use an online tool to build iPXE you should use http://rom-o-matic.eu/. Be aware that these PCI_ROM() changes I mentioned can't be done with an online builder. You'll need to use a Linux installation (virtual machine is completely okay) to compile the required files.

Also, I've heard that some Mac computers always boot in EFI mode when booting using USB, but booting from CD uses traditional BIOS method. I can't verify this, as I don't own a Mac. iPXE is still not working properly with EFI. It's very much a work-in-progress.

You need to follow the description on http://ipxe.org/download to build from source. If you have problems getting that to work, please report back.

It does seem like the link-up message is received on the Broadcom card, so something seems to be working. You'll have to step through all the steps listed in http://ipxe.org/dev/driver and notify us which of them fail. You might also need to build with debug activated for the tg3 driver to see more of what's happening. Once you have all this debug information you should get in touch with the developers on the mailing-list. It seems that the imac broadcom card is not working properly, and one of the developers will need to debug it further.

iPXE is a totally separate system from Linux, and downloading the linux drivers from broadcom.com won't help you at all. The only thing they're useful for is hardware documentation.

Now that you have a version of ipxe that works somewhat, you should go through all the tests in http://ipxe.org/dev/driver and report what works and what does not. Make a table and tell us the result of each of the tests, and include as much details if one of them fails.