Replace the existing PXE ROM on BCM5708 network card

[CGen]

Hello!

I replaced the existing PXE ROM on iPXE.
For this I used winfwnx2 utility for Windows.
To flash iPXE I used the "upgrade-F-mba 14e4164c.rom".
dir shows that there PCI30 MBA 0.0.1

However, iPXE ​​does not appear in BIOS. In what could be the problem?

[robinsmidsrod]

BCM5708 is using the bnx2 driver, isn't it? Is the network card onboard on your motherboard or a separate network card you put into a PCI slot? If it is onboard then you most likely can't flash the card itself, you'll have to mod and flash the BIOS of your motherboard. This is a tricky thing to get right and you risk bricking your motherboard if you do it wrong (and it doesn't have a simple backup/restore feature). Have you verified that a native iPXE driver works with the card in question? You can verify this by booting iPXE using ipxe.iso or ipxe.usb files. If that works okay then you can continue on your endeavour to burn it into ROM.

I wouldn't recommend burning the bnx2 into a rom at this stage. The driver is known to be too big and has some issues. Hopefully over the summer we'll have a new bnx2 driver available that should be much smaller and robust.

[CGen]

Hi!

This is a separate network card from IBM. I use it to experiment with iPXE.
For experiments using a conventional PC.
OK let bnx2 is not very good. It is not important.
iPXE shows no signs of PXE, ie no messages, etc.
Or should I try on Intel?

I'm just interested in the mechanism boot a computer without TFTP. Only by means of a network card.

Thanks!

[robinsmidsrod]

If you have an Intel-gigabit-based card, those are expected to work quite well. If you use a PCI(e) card and boot using either chainloading or a USB stick (make bin/ipxe.usb; dd if=bin/ipxe.usb of=/dev/disk/by-id/your-usb-device) you should have very few issues.

If you don't get the network boot option when booting you've probably forgotten to specify that your computer should boot from the network. Look in your BIOS configuration.

If you're just getting started you might find some of the resources on http://networkboot.org/ useful.

[CGen]

http://networkboot.org/ cool resource, thanks for the link.

"iPXE is a sophisticated boot program that is capable of extending the traditional PXE network boot process in several ways. It can be flashed as an add-on card's option ROM, or it can be loaded as a network boot program (NBP) from an existing PXE option ROM via TFTP (this is called chainloading)."

With chainloading it works for me.
I want to flash iPXE as an add-on card's option ROM. In order not to depend on a TFTP server and a USB stick. It is very convenient for me.
I tried with Broadcom - did not happen. I'll try with Intel.

Thanks!