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bshogeman · 2013-04-05, 10:13

I have a very strange issue.
On almost any pc iPXE functions correctly. On 15 of them sanboot fails.

The script loads:
sanboot --no-describe --drive 0x80

from a php script on a webserver. 99% of the times this gives no problem at al but at 15 pc's it hangs on the message Booting from SAN.
The strange thing in this is if you press Ctrl-B and typ the command by hand it boots normaly. I also can't find a difference between the machines.
All machines run the same image and an other machine of exactly the same model have no problems at al. The problem isn't isolated to one model.

An other issue is that on some pc's iPXE doesn't return a serial and model. Both variables contain only a space. This is one of the pc's that give the above sanboot error. And again an other pc of the same model doesn't have this problem. On both I can read the model and serial with a wmi query under windows without any problems. Bios update don't solve the problem.

Do you have any suggestions?

***robinsmidsrod*** · 2013-04-05, 10:41

Have you tried just using the "exit" command to continue the boot order and set the local storage device as the next in the bios boot order?

The sanboot method you use above is a side-effect of how the sanboot command works, and shouldn't really be used for local booting. The proper way is to use "exit". There is a known problem that some BIOSes have problems to boot local drives from inside the network card option ROM.

The iPXE project doesn't have a list of BIOSes that fail this test, but I know that some users of the puppet razor project has started compiling such a list. I'm not sure if it is public or not.

bshogeman · 2013-04-05, 11:59

Yes, the exit command completes the boot proces without errors.
The strange thing was that 2 pc's with what seems like the same bios 1 has and another hasn't the problem.
I had choosen the sanboot option because it boots the pc a little faster than the exit command. On some pc's the difference is seconds.
But I shall use exit command instead. That methode always seems to work.