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wimboot & multicore on esx issues - thild - 2014-09-30 17:12
Hello,
I'm currently experimenting issues when booting WinPE 3.1 and 5.0 through iPXE/wimboot on an ESXi 5.5 64bit guest.
I'm using vanilla WinPE distributions as explained here:
http://ipxe.org/howto/winpe
The problem occurs only when the ESXi guest platform has more than one core (both WinPE 3.1 and 5.0 boot well when there is only one core).
The same iPXE configurations work well when booting on a physical platform (64bit multicore) or a VirtualBox guest (also 64bit multicore).
The problem also does not occur if I transfer the WinPE distribution on an ISO file and use this file as a CD/DVD device for the ESXi guest (64bit multicore). It ends up with a working WinPE prompt.
So the current status when iPXE booting a 64bit multicore ESXi guest is:
- on WinPE 3.1, it ends up with a BSOD 0x7E (http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/hardware/ff559239%28v=vs.85%29.aspx) with the cause [0xC0000005: STATUS_ACCESS_VIOLATION]
- on WinPE 5.0, it ends up with a black screen
I have tried with the latest wimboot revision (2.3.0) but to no avail.
Adding vmware drivers to the WinPE wim also has no effect.
I have also tried to modify the number of cores per sockets (2 cores on 1 socket or 2 cores on 2 sockets), it also has no effect on the issue.
Is anyone experimenting the same type of issues?
Regards,
Thibault Hild
RE: wimboot & multicore on esx issues - thild - 2014-10-22 16:20
I guess no one did hit the same type of issue.
Can at least someone give me directions or advices on how to diagnose this ?
RE: wimboot & multicore on esx issues - mcb30 - 2014-11-07 11:45
(2014-10-22 16:20)thild Wrote: I guess no one did hit the same type of issue.
Can at least someone give me directions or advices on how to diagnose this ?
Try wimboot v2.4.0 (which was just released); it may help with this problem.
Michael
RE: wimboot & multicore on esx issues - thild - 2014-11-12 11:42
(2014-11-07 11:45)mcb30 Wrote: Try wimboot v2.4.0 (which was just released); it may help with this problem.
I have just tried with wimboot 2.4.0.
Trying to boot winpe 3.1 on 8 cores (ESXi 5.5 64bit guest) still ends up with a BSOD 0x7E with the cause [0xC0000005: STATUS_ACCESS_VIOLATION].
Thibault
RE: wimboot & multicore on esx issues - mijanek - 2014-11-12 12:27
What kind of storage are you assigning to the guest? It should be the LSI SAS storage. This is working fine in our environment. However we are booting form PXE using microsoft bootstrap.
RE: wimboot & multicore on esx issues - robinsmidsrod - 2014-12-03 16:19
You might need to attach a debugger (windbg) to WinPE to figure out exactly what is going on during installation. Then you might be able to figure out what is causing the access violation. Knowing where it happens is the first part in solving it. I would recommend you join the developers on IRC and try to debug it in realtime.
RE: wimboot & multicore on esx issues - thild - 2014-12-03 16:55
(2014-11-12 12:27)mijanek Wrote: What kind of storage are you assigning to the guest? It should be the LSI SAS storage. This is working fine in our environment. However we are booting form PXE using microsoft bootstrap.
Hi Mijanek, thanks for the tip.
In fact I am already using 'LSI SAS Storage' as the storage controller so the problem lies probably somewhere else.
(2014-12-03 16:19)robinsmidsrod Wrote: You might need to attach a debugger (windbg) to WinPE to figure out exactly what is going on during installation. Then you might be able to figure out what is causing the access violation. Knowing where it happens is the first part in solving it. I would recommend you join the developers on IRC and try to debug it in realtime.
Hi Robin, thanks for the recommendation.
I will try windbg as soon as I get some spare time.
I guess I will need to modify the BCD store to ensure that the booted WinPE can be debugged through a serial link (not sure how this should work from an ESX guest).
RE: wimboot & multicore on esx issues - danberk - 2015-01-31 01:24
Thild, any luck with debuging this? I am running into the same exact thing. It seems to stop while wimboot is loading, but it randomly stops at different files.
ESXi 5.5, iPXE built today, wimboot 2.4.1
RE: wimboot & multicore on esx issues - danberk - 2015-01-31 02:31
Hello again! I have tried several configurations. It seems that no matter if you wimboot or just try to load a iso with memdisk it fails at the same place. Once memory gets to 2,359,296 bytes it stops.