iPXE fails to download file large than 32KB

[Mad Butcher]

I test iPXE in Oracle VM VirtualBox.
First machine it is Windows server 2012 with DHCP, IIS an WDS roles, second with setting boot from iPXE.iso, downloaded from official site. It's boot, obtain ip, load small files, but when i try load large file all freezes near 32KB. See attachment.

[mcb30]

(2013-04-18 07:30)Mad Butcher Wrote:  I test iPXE in Oracle VM VirtualBox.
First machine it is Windows server 2012 with DHCP, IIS an WDS roles, second with setting boot from iPXE.iso, downloaded from official site. It's boot, obtain ip, load small files, but when i try load large file all freezes near 32KB. See attachment.

Not sure where you get your 32kB figure from: bootmgr in Windows Server 2012 is 398156 bytes, so 21% of that would be around 81kB.

Are you able to press Ctrl-C to cancel the download, or is the VM completely locked up?

Which virtualised NIC are you using? ("ifstat" within iPXE will tell you, if you're not sure.)

Michael

[Mad Butcher]

Thanks for quick answer Michael!

It show 21%, but i tryed download many file and threshold was around 32kb (33000bytes don't downloads).

Ctrl-C not affect, VM completely locked up, only Ctrl-R (restart VM) available.

iPXE> ifstat
net0: 08:00:27:a7:56:b5 using pcnet32 on PCI00:03.0 (closed)
[Link:up, TX:0 TXE:0 RX:0 RXE:0]

I tried to find a list of iPXE card support, but did not find, it exist?
In src/drivers/net/ i find a pcnet32 source and header files, so strange that it not worked...

I changed card from "PCnet-PCI II (Am79C970A)" to "Intel PRO/1000 MT Server (82545EM)" and all downloads fine.

Thanks again Michael, your advice helped to me.

[robinsmidsrod]

It seems like there is a regression in the pcnet32 driver that blocks it from working properly. Using one of the Intel virtualized NICs is definitely an easy workaround. You should also be aware that the pcnet II vnic is a 10Mbit NIC, and as such it would've been very slow to use. Using the 1Gbit Intel network card is a much smarter choice.

The developers have been made aware of the bug and is trying to figure out what the core problem is.

[Torgeir]

I have had the same problem with virtual machines and http.
An easy solution, try over a different protocol for virtual machines.

tftp, how does that work for you?

[robinsmidsrod]

According to Maniek it seems this problem also occurs in VMware when using pcnet32 there.

http://forum.ipxe.org/showthread.php?tid=6898