Alternatives to using Memdisk?

[nappington]

We currently use memdisk as the kernel to load BIOS update images in iPXE to perform BIOS updates. Unfortunately memdisk doesn't seem to work for Lenovo BIOS updates (ISO or .IMG) in any combination or permutation of arguments - the image loads fine, but whenever the actual update is attempted (Selecting "update system program" from within the update utility) the machine hangs entirely.

I'm wondering if there exist any memdisk alternatives that we can use to make the Lenovo BIOS updates work.

[mcb30]

(2015-08-23 20:33)nappington Wrote:  We currently use memdisk as the kernel to load BIOS update images in iPXE to perform BIOS updates. Unfortunately memdisk doesn't seem to work for Lenovo BIOS updates (ISO or .IMG) in any combination or permutation of arguments - the image loads fine, but whenever the actual update is attempted (Selecting "update system program" from within the update utility) the machine hangs entirely.

I'm wondering if there exist any memdisk alternatives that we can use to make the Lenovo BIOS updates work.

Have you tried just SAN-booting the ISO image ("sanboot http://..../update.iso")?

Michael

[nappington]

I had no idea that was even an option, but I just tried and received an error:

Could not open SAN device: Error 0x420e2001

Looking at the documentation, that refers to:
You get this error when trying to use sanboot (with http and maybe other sources to) and autoboot is undefined when compiling ipxe.

Pretty sure that autoboot is operating properly in my instance of iPXE, though...

[mcb30]

(2015-08-23 20:39)nappington Wrote:  Could not open SAN device: Error 0x420e2001

Which version of iPXE are you using ("show version")? The HTTP core was rewritten recently, so I need to check you're using the latest code before going any further.

Michael

[nappington]

Not 100% sure since we've overwritten the version variable, but we're up to this commit:

https://git.ipxe.org/ipxe.git/commit/f55...1d10e6f0c3

[mcb30]

(2015-08-23 21:40)nappington Wrote:  Not 100% sure since we've overwritten the version variable, but we're up to this commit:

https://git.ipxe.org/ipxe.git/commit/f55...1d10e6f0c3

OK. More than 25000 lines of code have changed since that commit, including a complete rewrite of the HTTP core. Please try using the latest code before trying anything else.

Thanks,

Michael

[nappington]

Thanks, I'll check back once I've done so!