UEFI grub + wimboot

[ndog]

Hi there

I am keen to know if anyone could get wimboot + grub UEFI pxe boot working.

Heres my steps

download Fedora-Xfce-Live-x86_64-24-1.2.iso
extract \EFI\BOOT\
- BOOTX64.EFI
- grubx64.efi
- grub.cfg

setup tftp to serve BOOTX64.EFI

Add entries in grub.cfg

menuentry 'wimboot 1' {
linuxefi /boot/wimboot
}

menuentry 'wimboot 2' {
linuxefi /boot/wimboot
initrdefi \
newc:bcd:/boot/boot/BCD \
newc:boot.sdi:/boot/boot/boot.sdi \
newc:boot.wim:/boot/boot.wim
}

After booting from UEFI pxe and selecting wimboot 1 or 2, there is an error message

error: kernel too old.
error: you need to load the kernel first.
Press any key to continue...

[NiKiZe]

wimboot have a header that makes it look like both a .efi and a linux kernel this is so the same file can be used in both environments.

It seems that grub incorrectly detects this as an old linux kernel and does not even try to run it in efi mode.

A few things to test,
* make sure you are using the latest version of wimboot.
* test with the latest and official version of grub
* contact the grub developers or community about the issue if it is reproducible with the latest official release
* if it is only an issue with Fedora, then contact them and tell them to release something that is up2date for once.

[robinsmidsrod]

Wimboot is not tested with grub, so it's unknown whether it would actually work or not, much less in UEFI mode. Try getting it to work directly with iPXE in EFI mode first, and if that is confirmed to work then you can try to get it to work with EFI grub. Also remember that the initrd stanzas used with wimboot load files into ramdisk and wrap them as cpio archives. It's highly likely that grub doesn't do this (which ipxe does). See http://ipxe.org/cmd/initrd for more details.

[ndog]

After trying various things I am able to get wimboot to load from grub2 bootx64.efi
I am still to figure out how to pass the command line.
I will post back here once I find out.

menuentry 'Wimboot test' {
insmod chain
set root='(hd0,gpt1)'
chainloader /EFI/wim/wimboot
}

[jamefane]

Is there a way to boot wimboot in UEFI from grub2? or can it implemented?

[NiKiZe]

(2018-05-31 13:20)jamefane Wrote:  Is there a way to boot wimboot in UEFI from grub2? or can it implemented?

I moved your post to an already existing topic asking the same thing, and having at least an partial answer.
As in any forum, please search for your question before asking
Sorry that this won't answer your question fully, but it might get you on the right track, but then again grub is probably not the right tool for the job.

[jamefane]

Okay sorry.

“but then again grub is probably not the right tool for the job.“ but which tool ist the right?

I have a multiboot to boot isos for windows, linux etc..
and i want use wimboot for windows.

is it really not possible to make compatibility with grub2 efi?

It would be really helpful and useful.

Wimboot working in Legacy mode.
You can only boot wimboot through grub2 with the command linux16. Grub2 EFI dosen't support linux16 only linux


Kind regards

[johnny]

Hello,
I see that many wish the compatibility of wimboot to grub2 here. grub2 does not work with wimboot because wimboot as far as I know has no EFI stub. For the grub2 commands linuxefi and intridefi we need EFI stub. The question is could this be implemented?

[NiKiZe]

(2018-06-05 10:24)johnny Wrote:  Hello,
I see that many wish the compatibility of wimboot to grub2 here. grub2 does not work with wimboot because wimboot as far as I know has no EFI stub. For the grub2 commands linuxefi and intridefi we need EFI stub. The question is could this be implemented?

Your post was moved to already existing thread, (there is a few others as well, try the search function) and the answer will be the same. wimbot _IS_ an efi application _and_ NBP bootable exectuable, using the same tricks as is used in the Linux kernel to do the same thing.

The question is rather: how do you make grub boot any arbitrary EFI executable, and one answer to that is found above.

Now if only grub could have a working implementation of "efiapplication" that would solve the issue.... and it does just as described above the chainloader option should work, another mention of this can be found at https://unix.stackexchange.com/a/277750/98422

[johnny]

Hello guys,
I have a little question, can you add a new cmdline command to pass the Windows files (I saw that initrdfile is ignored?).

Example:
wimboot initrd=/path/to/bootmgr,/path/to/boot/bcd,/path/to/boot/boot.sdi,/path/to/sources/boot.wim

Thanks in advance.

[NiKiZe]

To me it's not clear what you mean?

What are you running wimboot from?
There is no initrd argument to wimboot - the reason for this is that it loads what is in memory.
However some bootloaders use the initrd argument as a hack for actually loading the initrds (which is kind of horrible)

[johnny]

Oh okay, I mean maybe you can add a cmdline command to add the paths of the windows files directly. For example, to use wimboot with chainload or something else.
It seems that many bootloaders can't handle wimboot, but i think wimboot is such a useful tool.

That's why I wanted to ask if there's anything possible?

---

But isn't it so that wimboot takes only the default pahts /boot/boot.sdi /sources/boot.wim etc?

[NiKiZe]

It is hard, and sometimes impossible to answer questions when you don't provide needed information.
As I asked before, what are you running wimboot from, and where is this an actual issue?
Also make sure to provide information about if EFI or PCBIOS is used.
And also make sure to provide any and all error messages that you are seeing.

(2018-08-15 12:30)johnny Wrote:  add a cmdline command to add the paths of the windows files directly

What do you mean by this?
wimboot does not, and never will be able to "load files"
All it has to work with is what is provided to it in memory.

For example, in the case of Grub (which I'm assuming you are using since you have asked about it before, but if that is the case, why are you creating a new thread about the same topic?)
It is up to grub to load the files into memory, and then start wimboot.
It should not give the filenames themselves to wimboot.

If grub or any other bootloader (incorrectly) adds extra invalid options to the cmdline, then that should be fixed, and as a last resort it might be possible to duplicate the syslinux logic to have wimboot ignore those options see: https://git.ipxe.org/wimboot.git/blob/55...ine.c#l108
Again remember wimboot only uses what is provided as files in memory and nothing else

[johnny]

Okay, I'm sorry, I always assumed that the boot loader must load wimboot with the files.

(Don't know much about that).

You said in another post that wimboot has a hybrid header kernel/efi but grub2 recognizes it wrong.
Had asked grub about it but didn't get an answer.

Well the cmdline one, I thought it could work because I only got wimboot started in uefi mode with the chainloder and not linux / intrid and I was thinking i could just tell wimboot where the windows files are.

[NiKiZe]

Still you have not answered my questions in regards to bootloader and mode - and I will not guess what you mean.
However I will restate one of my questions; If you are continuing to ask about already existing topic - why are you creating a new thread? Threads are now merged

Please read what I wrote again and make sure you answer all questions that I asked.

And yes the bootloader must load the files - NOT wimboot

[johnny]

Ups, Yeah i use grub2 efi 64bit.
And yes i forgotten the other post, sry my fault.

---

With chainloader i can only load wimboot not the needed windows files?

[NiKiZe]

(2018-08-15 13:14)johnny Wrote:  With chainloader i can only load wimboot not the needed windows files?

So with grub chainload it is not possible to also use initrdefi ?

Just to reiterate here.
* Grub does not provide standard methods for booting efi binaries and initrd but instead does special handling.
* Grub is for disks
* To boot winpe from disk you can use their standard efi bootloader
* wimboot is made to be used with iPXE for network boots

The right tool for the job is to use iPXE + wimboot for networkbooting
And for disk booting it is to use Grub and windows standard boot process to start winpe from disk - which does not involve iPXEs wimboot.

[johnny]

Can i use ipxe only to load files locally?
I mean without network cards.
I that possible?

[NiKiZe]

(2018-08-16 07:19)johnny Wrote:  Can i use ipxe only to load files locally?
I mean without network cards.
I that possible?

It is possible to use file:// protocol in efi mode
To boot you still need a network device to bind to (just do ifopen)

[trulyliu]

(2018-08-15 13:10)NiKiZe Wrote:  Still you have not answered my questions in regards to bootloader and mode - and I will not guess what you mean.
However I will restate one of my questions; If you are continuing to ask about already existing topic - why are you creating a new thread? Threads are now merged

Please read what I wrote again and make sure you answer all questions that I asked.

And yes the bootloader must load the files - NOT wimboot

I am a developer but lake of the knowledge of UEFI and wimboot,
If I want to make wimboot work in grub2 UEFI mode,
which feature should I implement in wimboot?