Net-booting an EFI image on an aarch64 server with iPXE script

[travislazar]

(2019-05-02 22:56)NiKiZe Wrote:  you are starting iPXE on ARM correct? Are you from there starting an ARM kernel?

Yep, using iPXE on arm aarch64 with UEFI.

(2019-05-02 22:56)NiKiZe Wrote:  you will also have to load the proper initrd, and make sure that if the file is initrd.gz, the kernel commandline needs to have initrd=initrd.gz - since that is how it knows which file to load.
Don't try to use grub or anything else, unless you know for sure you have to.
All of this can, and should be done directly from iPXE.

Just use the proper kernel and initrd lines and you would be fine.

My one hangup here is that I'm unable to find a kernel image that actually works. I'm not entirely sure what's going on here, my newness to the area contributes to that.

Here's a clear example.

I use

Code:

kernel http://ports.ubuntu.com/ubuntu-ports/dists/bionic-updates/main/installer-arm64/current/images/hwe-netboot/ubuntu-installer/arm64/linux

in my iPXE file. And I get an Exec format error (2e008081). So the image seems to be in a format that iPXE deems invalid.

But, and here's a confusing part to me. When I use

Code:

sanboot http://ports.ubuntu.com/ubuntu-ports/dists/bionic-updates/main/installer-arm64/current/images/hwe-netboot/mini.iso

I get a boot menu and can manually install Ubuntu no problem.

My problem with the sanboot option is that I can't figure out how to pass imgargs to it in order to make it fully automated.

So two questions:

1. Why is the linux image giving me an exec format error when the same image loaded via ISO sanboot method works, boots, and installs Ubuntu?
2. Assuming I wanted to continue with sanboot, since it works (and assuming we can't get #1 to work), how can I pass arguments to the sanbooted image to enable preseed/quiet/auto=true behavior?