(2016-12-14 09:06)sspans Wrote:  I have the same issue with iPXE, UEFI, CentOS 7.3 and HP G9 hardware.

(2016-12-14 09:06)sspans Wrote:  However this config doesn't seem to work for the 7.3 installer.

(2016-12-14 09:06)sspans Wrote:  I'm planning to evaluate some alternative solutions next week.
(using an elrepo kernel, bootstrapping via grub + memdisk, etc).

(2016-12-14 19:28)NiKiZe Wrote:  

(2016-12-14 09:06)sspans Wrote:  I have the same issue with iPXE, UEFI, CentOS 7.3 and HP G9 hardware.

If it hangs during kernel boot it should have been resolved a week or two ago in git master, if it still does not it would help if the exact ipxe git version was posted, as well as error description.

(2016-12-14 19:28)NiKiZe Wrote:  

(2016-12-14 09:06)sspans Wrote:  However this config doesn't seem to work for the 7.3 installer.

Could you describe more what you mean by "doesn't seem to work" ? does it hang, if so what do you see on screen, if not i guess you get some kind of error message?

(2016-12-14 19:28)NiKiZe Wrote:  

(2016-12-14 09:06)sspans Wrote:  I'm planning to evaluate some alternative solutions next week.
(using an elrepo kernel, bootstrapping via grub + memdisk, etc).

memdisk does not work in efi mode.

Quote:* Fri Nov 04 2016 Frantisek Hrbata <fhrbata@hrbata.com> [3.10.0-514.2.1.el7]
- [firmware] efi: Fix usage of illegal alignment on efi_low_alloc (Lenny Szubowicz) [1392044 1387689]

(2016-12-20 14:48)sspans Wrote:  I've decided to stick to the grub-wrapper solution for now.
Script + grub.cfg below:

grub.cfg:

Code:

net_bootp efinet0

menuentry "CentOS-7" {
    linuxefi (memdisk)/vmlinuz ks=http://boot.myhost.tld/install/centos-7/install.ks BOOTIF=${net_efinet0_dhcp_mac}
    initrdefi (memdisk)/initrd.img
}

set timeout=0
set default="CentOS-7"

(2016-12-20 07:12)mathp Wrote:  I found a way using the CentOS 7.3 kernel to make this work, but it's largely inspired by allenb CentOS 7 post : http://forum.ipxe.org/showthread.php?tid=7813&pid=12480#pid12480

Instead of using the ELRepo Kernel, I just went with the currently updated 7.3 kernel version:

Code:

mkdir POC && cd $_
wget http://<your-centos-mirror>/centos/7.3.1611/updates/x86_64/Packages/kernel-3.10.0-514.2.2.el7.x86_64.rpm
wget http://<your-centos-mirror>/centos/7.3.1611/os/x86_64/images/pxeboot/initrd.img
mkdir {kernel,initrd,pxe-images}

This gave me the following starting structure:

Code:

/home/mathp/POC/
|-- initrd/
|-- initrd.img
|-- kernel/
|-- kernel-3.10.0-514.2.2.el7.x86_64.rpm
`-- pxe-images/

3 directories, 2 files

The following steps match the ones described by "allenb", but with a few differences in the compression used and the depmod command. I also needed to load extra modules, but that is probably just a dependency of my kickstart pre-scripts (I create a ram drive to save some settings to be used between the pre and post script).

Code:

cd kernel/
rpm2cpio ../kernel-3.10.0-514.2.2.el7.x86_64.rpm | cpio -idum
cp boot/vmlinuz-3.10.0-514.2.2.el7.x86_64 ../pxe-images/
cd ../initrd
xz -dc < ../initrd.img | cpio --quiet -i --make-directories
rm -rf usr/lib/modules/3.10.0-514.el7.x86_64
cd ..
rsync -a kernel/lib/modules/3.10.0-514.2.2.el7.x86_64 initrd/usr/lib/modules
depmod -ae -F kernel/boot/System.map-3.10.0-514.2.2.el7.x86_64 -b /home/mathp/POC/initrd
mkdir initrd/etc/modules-load.d
echo -e "loop" > initrd/etc/modules-load.d/loop.conf
echo -e "libcrc32c\nxfs" > initrd/etc/modules-load.d/xfs.conf
echo -e "fat\nvfat" > initrd/etc/modules-load.d/fat.conf
echo -e "jbd2\nmbcache\next4" > initrd/etc/modules-load.d/ext4.conf
echo -e "brd" > initrd/etc/modules-load.d/brd.conf
cd initrd/
find . 2>/dev/null | cpio --quiet -c -o | xz -9 --format=lzma >../pxe-images/initrd.img-3.10.0-514.2.2.el7.x86_64
cd ../pxe-images
ls -l
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 52900032 Dec 19 23:04 initrd.img-3.10.0-514.2.2.el7.x86_64
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root  5393328 Dec 19 22:49 vmlinuz-3.10.0-514.2.2.el7.x86_64

I then use the resulting vmlinuz / initrd in the very straight forward iPXE fashion:

Code:

set my-initrd initrd.img-3.10.0-514.2.2.el7.x86_64
set my-vmlinuz vmlinuz-3.10.0-514.2.2.el7.x86_64

imgfree
initrd --name initramfs ${boot-images}/${os}/${os-version}/${my-initrd}
kernel ${boot-images}/${os}/${os-version}/${my-vmlinuz} initrd=initramfs ${params}

Output:

Code:

http://[removed]/ai/boot-images/centos/7.3.1611/initrd.img-3.10.0-514.2.2.el7.x86_64... ok
http://[removed]/ai/boot-images/centos/7.3.1611/vmlinuz-3.10.0-514.2.2.el7.x86_64... ok
...
[    0.000000] Linux version 3.10.0-514.2.2.el7.x86_64 (builder@kbuilder.dev.centos.org) (gcc version 4.8.5 20150623 (Red Hat 4.8.5-11) (GCC) ) #1 SMP Tue Dec 6 23:06:41 UTC 2016
[    0.000000] Command line: vmlinuz-3.10.0-514.2.2.el7.x86_64 initrd=initramfs inst.ks=http://[removed]/ai/auto-config/centos/kickstart/7.3.1611/ks-7.3.1611-server.cfg ip=dhcp BOOTIF=01-2c-60-0c-d0-ab-52 inst.sshd inst.vnc inst.text console=tty0 console=ttyS1,115200n8
...

The only thing that I found in the kernel RPM change log between the "stock" centos 7.3 kernel and this published updated version that I think might be applicable is:

Quote:* Fri Nov 04 2016 Frantisek Hrbata <fhrbata@hrbata.com> [3.10.0-514.2.1.el7]
- [firmware] efi: Fix usage of illegal alignment on efi_low_alloc (Lenny Szubowicz) [1392044 1387689]

I'm not certain where to look to find any information on that patch...

Anyway, this is by far not an ideal solution, more like an ugly patch to the problem, but at least it works, and using centos / RHEL provided kernel. I'm quite certain this is not an iPXE problem but really a problem with the stock pxelinux/vmlinuz kernel in the installation media / repo.

Hope this helps.

Math.

(2017-06-01 12:19)jjmakin Wrote:  Thank you very much for posting this info.
I was very relieved to get anaconda running to completion, however on reboot my machine just dropped me into a grub shell and I can't determine if my kickstart file is bad or somehow I've made a mistake repeating the process above.
As a few months have passed I have used kernel 3.10.0-514.21.1.el7.x86_64
My kickstart options are to use autopart with lvm and my bootloader option is a very simple bootloader --location=mbr

(2016-12-20 07:12)mathp Wrote:  I found a way using the CentOS 7.3 kernel to make this work, but it's largely inspired by allenb CentOS 7 post : http://forum.ipxe.org/showthread.php?tid=7813&pid=12480#pid12480

Instead of using the ELRepo Kernel, I just went with the currently updated 7.3 kernel version:

...

(2017-06-07 23:18)mathp Wrote:  Hi jjmakin,

My understanding is that you iPXE booted successfully and that the installation ran normally. Then on first reboot you got stuck at the grub prompt? That sounds like the system is unable to find the proper boot "info".

If you ended up in this thread, I assume you're booting UEFI native mode.

Did "autopart" create the "EFI" partition properly? If so, I suggest you try adding "--boot-drive=<boot device name>" to the "bootloader" kickstart line (that works for me using GPT formatted disk), ex.:

Code:

bootloader --location=mbr --boot-drive=sda

From the grub menu, you can also test this without re-installing by manually specifying the boot device...

Sounds like your 95% there: if you had made a mistake in the long process I posted, I doubt the server would have PXE booted and installed without reporting an issue.

Best,
Math.

(2017-06-01 12:19)jjmakin Wrote:  Thank you very much for posting this info.
I was very relieved to get anaconda running to completion, however on reboot my machine just dropped me into a grub shell and I can't determine if my kickstart file is bad or somehow I've made a mistake repeating the process above.
As a few months have passed I have used kernel 3.10.0-514.21.1.el7.x86_64
My kickstart options are to use autopart with lvm and my bootloader option is a very simple bootloader --location=mbr

(2016-12-20 07:12)mathp Wrote:  I found a way using the CentOS 7.3 kernel to make this work, but it's largely inspired by allenb CentOS 7 post : http://forum.ipxe.org/showthread.php?tid=7813&pid=12480#pid12480

Instead of using the ELRepo Kernel, I just went with the currently updated 7.3 kernel version:

...

(2017-11-21 16:22)WmYVR Wrote:  I am new to this forum and iPXE. I have been struggling to get my CentOS 7.4 1708 to PXEboot successfully ultimately to proceed to KickStart - using a VMware ESXi VM (BIOS and not EFI). Like this thread, both the CentOS's pxeboot initrd and vmlinuz files are being loaded via HTTP but vmlinuz fails to complete its boot due to not being able to mount the root filesystem.

I note that "mathp" says he/she had success with iPXE and "stock" Centos 7.4.1708 installer kernel. I would appreciate a snippet of the iPXE script that did this so that I can confirm my environment.

Thanks

WmYVR