new to ipxe . uefi problem win sanboot

[vascomorais]

hi everyone,
I'm loving ipxe and i am using it's kernels with fog project to make a very powerful pxe server.
with the fog project server i also have an iscsi server that hosts several targets that are actually stuff like windows instalations, hiren's boot, and other tools.

The problem is that using sanboot in bios mode everything works fine, but as soon as i go to uefi boot it states that i can't have descripted san devices.
using no description works but the bootable drives fail to work properly : eg. hiren's boot will boot to a windows pe envoirment but it won't display the hiren's boot drive with all the important tool, windows will ask for the drivers because can't find them... etc...

what options do i have in my case? WDS is something i'm trying to avoid... as it's soooo much easy to compile a bootable iscsi drive and then just add a menu with whatever i want.
Plus, having diskless operation systems so i can test some computers would be awsome and nowadays most computers's bios are uefi.-

[vascomorais]

Hey guys, i am tring to boot from sanboot devices (iscsi) , if i do it with legacy bios everything works, but as soon as i move to an EFI boot, i have to use the --no-describe / -n option, and that boots me into some sort of "closed" system where i can't see my drives, i can't see the iscsi drive, and nothing will work.
i know this is a limitation but i am asking, what can i do in my case? i want to boot to iscsi devices in legacy, as if it was a phisical hard drive in my own computer.

[NiKiZe]

Hello, Since you created two threads, highly related to each other I merged them.

All errors from iPXE have an ipxe.org url, please always include that.
If you use --no-describe it does exactly that, which is (don't describe this iSCSI device in the iBFT table) and that is what the OS uses to find, and connect to, the iSCSI device, so with that option the OS won't know what to do.

[vascomorais]

(2018-07-02 20:03)NiKiZe Wrote:  Hello, Since you created two threads, highly related to each other I merged them.

All errors from iPXE have an ipxe.org url, please always include that.
If you use --no-describe it does exactly that, which is (don't describe this iSCSI device in the iBFT table) and that is what the OS uses to find, and connect to, the iSCSI device, so with that option the OS won't know what to do.

i did created two threads, because i'm a dumbass and didn't read the sticky post that stated new users need to have their first message checked by a mod before posting, and i tought something went wrong and i did a double post by mistake, so sorry for that .

Putting this aside, is there *ANY* way i can boot to an iscsi device in UEFI mode, the way i do it in legacy bios mode (without using the no describe option)
Because... everything works perfectly that way, but it doesn't work in UEFI mode.

Btw thanks for the guys behind IPXE you guys are the best.

[NiKiZe]

(2018-07-02 23:03)vascomorais Wrote:  

(2018-07-02 20:03)NiKiZe Wrote:  All errors from iPXE have an ipxe.org url, please always include that.
If you use --no-describe it does exactly that, which is (don't describe this iSCSI device in the iBFT table) and that is what the OS uses to find, and connect to, the iSCSI device, so with that option the OS won't know what to do.

Putting this aside, is there *ANY* way i can boot to an iscsi device in UEFI mode, the way i do it in legacy bios mode (without using the no describe option)
Because... everything works perfectly that way, but it doesn't work in UEFI mode.

Are you saying that everything works in legacy pcbios mode when you are using --no-describe? I find that highly unlikely.
As I wrote above, if you add no-describe the iSCSI information isn't added to the iBFT ACPI table which is used to communicate it to the OS - as such the OS won't know about the iSCSI device, and you would have to provide that information some other way - this is most likely not what you want, so please read my reply above again and provide the relevant ipxe.org error url, thanks.

[NiKiZe]

Is it perhaps "Could not describe SAN devices: Operation not supported (http://ipxe.org/3c222083)" that you see? have you read that page?
Are you trying to boot an ISO to install windows? if so I would strongly suggest that you check out using wimboot instead.

[vascomorais]

(2018-07-03 00:28)NiKiZe Wrote:  Is it perhaps "Could not describe SAN devices: Operation not supported (http://ipxe.org/3c222083)" that you see? have you read that page?
Are you trying to boot an ISO to install windows? if so I would strongly suggest that you check out using wimboot instead.

i'm using wimboot and a winpe envoirment to point to a "share" folder will all the windows instalations i use (windows 7 english, windows 7 portuguese, windows 10 english, windows 10 portuguese, windows vista, windows xp, got everything in one shared folder easy and acessible, it's not that.
it's just that i run hiren's boot and if i don't use -no-describe i can access the hiren's boot files inside the hiren's boot menu that is in the "usb" pen.
i could allways create another winpe with wimboot and add hbcd to the share folder, so there's allways ways to get arround problems... but it allways means more work

[NiKiZe]

(2018-07-03 21:07)vascomorais Wrote:  it's just that i run hiren's boot and if i don't use -no-describe i can access the hiren's boot files inside the hiren's boot menu that is in the "usb" pen.

While you have not started a OS the san device can be accessed via the virtual device that iPXE creates, this is also used in the early bootloader and "menu". But as soon as a kernel is loaded there is no way for that virtual device to persist, again this is why iBFT exists and why your usage of --no-device won't work.

And even if you do have iBFT support at the iPXE level, not all OSes that is loaded from hirens support iSCSI, and as such not all things will work anyway.

However, you have not yet provided what the error is that you get, without that there is no way for anyone to even try to help you with that particular part of your issue.