How to get very old 3c905b with iPXE to work?

[hegi]

Hi there,
I do have a very old (probably 12 years+) PCI-style 3com 3c905b with eprom-socket, PCI device is 10b7:9055.

I burned iPXE to an EEPROM and put this into the socket and booted, but after the inital message (Ctrl-B stuff) it crashes. When I press Ctrl-B, here is what it says:

Code:

PXE (http://ipxe.org) 00:08.0 3000 PCI 2.10 PnP PMM +00420000+00431000 3000

iPXE (PCI 00:08.0) starting execution...1B101B10 00420CF4 00000722
Installation failed - cannot continue

Could it be, that this NIC is way to old for iPXE? It used to work with the old etherboot, but the old rom-o-matic is gone.

... Any hints as where to seek the problem? Thanks a lot in advance!

Hegi.

[NiKiZe]

I would suggest that you first build for example 10b79055.iso and test that (if PCIID is correct)
And when you have done that and confirmed it working you could start experimenting with rom burning.

Please provide the exact make command you used to build your rom.

The error you get seems to come from libprefix.S, not sure how to debug that. but let's start with the basics above first.

[hegi]

Hi NiKiZe,
thank you for your reply.

(2017-09-11 21:38)NiKiZe Wrote:  I would suggest that you first build for example 10b79055.iso and test that (if PCIID is correct)
And when you have done that and confirmed it working you could start experimenting with rom burning.

OK, then we do it in these two steps.

What I want do to is to use the NIC to Boot the Box as a LTSP client. The filename is handed out by DHCP, the the kernel by TFTP.

(2017-09-11 21:38)NiKiZe Wrote:  Please provide the exact make command you used to build your rom.

Sure.
So I did "Generating iPXE build image version 9720f" as "Standard build" on rom-o-matic.eu as ".ISO bootable image", which then in turn is stored on an USB-Stick using dd. The embedded script was specified as follows, based on the web-examples:

Code:

#!ipxe

:retry_dhcp
dhcp && isset ${filename} || goto retry_dhcp
echo Booting from ${filename}
chain ${filename}

... this boots me nicely into my LTSP environment. - Good

However, the only changes from my previous failed ROM Attempt were:

• Advanced Build
• ROM binary (10b79055.rom)
• PCI-Vendor & Device ID 10b7:9055 (according to lspci)
• burning the binary using zprommer to an MX28F1000 EEPROM
• fitting the 3com NIC with the EEPROM
  

(2017-09-11 21:38)NiKiZe Wrote:  The error you get seems to come from libprefix.S, not sure how to debug that. but let's start with the basics above first.

...well I'm also not sure what to do or try .

Since the script is working as expected and there are no other config options on rom-o-matic besides the GIT revision, I see little hope to make this fly as planned.

For the time beeing I rule out the burned EEPROM Chip as source of failure, since it verifys "OK" and it is recognized by the NIC, since it shows an iPXE message upon startup.

Any further ideas?

Thank a lot

Stefan.

[NiKiZe]

The only way you will be able to do anything useful is if you clone the iPXE git repo and then build it yourself.

so

Code:

git clone git.ipxe.org/ipxe.git
cd ipxe/src
make bin/10b79055.iso

This is mostly as described at http://ipxe.org/download#source_code

if you are putting it on usb with dd use make bin/10b79055.usb and dd that instead.

Your embedded script does exactly the same thing as autoboot which is run automatically if you have no embedded script, the only difference is that there is no retry with autoboot.
But start with generic, default options build to make it easy to reproduce.

If you get that working, then you can move to building roms instead, the actual command you used to build your failing rom (similar to above) is what we need to be able to help you.

See the .rom and .mrom options as described at: http://ipxe.org/appnote/buildtargets#boot_type

[hegi]

Hi NiKiZe,

(2017-09-15 22:09)NiKiZe Wrote:  The only way you will be able to do anything useful is if you clone the iPXE git repo and then build it yourself.

well, thanks for the hint, but I put that on hold, as I cannot get the bios to prompt the NIC to boot (see my other thread). So I have to work with USB-Sticks anyhow, and that works as wanted.

Tanks again,

Hegi.