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+--- Thread: limitations of snponly.efi (/showthread.php?tid=7604)
efi snponly - mark0x01 - 2015-01-30 04:55
I have WinPE network booting nicely from IBM UEFI only servers via snponly.efi
Progress at last, I want more....
Is it possible to boot anything else ?
PXE format Linux or iso files would be nice.
I have had little success so far, and posts seem to indicate that only an efi binary file can be booted this way.
I can chain grubx64.efi loader, but it doesn't seem to offer anything better.
limitations of snponly.efi - mark0x01 - 2015-02-01 04:01
What are the limitations when using snponly.efi ?
I didn't find much info in the docs.
I have a working WinPE network boot for Server 2012 deployment, but would like to boot some older legacy linux or iso files as well.
The hardware is IBM/Lenovo xSeries servers configured for UEFI Only - no legacy boot, as this avoids the issues of installation of Windows on large disks and considerably speeds up boot times.
The snponly.efi was the only efi image that successfully booted without issues that seem to be pci related. As it works well, I have stuck with it, although only with tftp at present.
RE: limitations of snponly.efi - robinsmidsrod - 2015-02-04 10:35
You can only boot EFI binaries in a UEFI environment, so none of the legacy BIOS systems will boot on your new UEFI system. But it is quite possible to boot Linux and other systems, as long as they are designed to work on UEFI. Using the kernel+initrd commands in iPXE should get you a long way. Just remember that PXE, bzImage and ELF binaries can't be loaded in an UEFI environment, and sanboot (ISO boot) is not yet supported on UEFI.
RE: limitations of snponly.efi - mark0x01 - 2015-02-04 21:58
Thanks, that clarifies things.
Success report - mark0x01 - 2015-09-02 23:29
I have had great success with recent UEFI IBM model using snp.efi for Windows deployment.http://forum.ipxe.org/images/smilies/smile.gif
The latest snapshot from git resolved the problem with the x3250 M5 not finding the network device.
build command:
make bin-x86_64-efi/snp.efi OPTION=PING_CMD,IMAGE_EFI,IMAGE_BZIMAGE,IMAGE_PXE,PXE_MENU,PXE_CMD DEBUG=snpnet,snponly