[ipxe-devel] iPXE Trunk ROM for Virtualbox virtio nic

[Mark Gollahon]

Hello, list!

I have been trying for days to compile an iPXE virtio-net ROM for use
with Virtualbox, but have been unsuccessful.  I originally followed
the instructions on the etherboot site
(http://WWW.etherboot.org/wiki/romburning/vbox) with just changing the
driver to "virtio-net.rom" without success.  I then tried
"virtio-net.mrom" and that didn't work.  As a sanity-check, I tried
"virtio-net.iso" and that booted, so I know this works....

The symptoms that Virtualbox exibits when starting a virtual machine
is a noticeable delay on showing the Virtualbox splash and then a
"FATAL: No bootable medium found! System halted" message immediately
after the VBox splash.  If I remove the iPXE ROM from the VM's config
(and leaving all the other config in place), there is no initial
delay, but Virtualbox's Intel UNDI firmware doesn't have support for
virtio-net.

After all of this, I started compiling-out pieces of iPXE that I
thought I might not use in my environment (and some I might) to try
and get the ROM size down based on the message thread "iPXE with
Virtualbox" started on this list by Pete I. Eby.  I currently have
removed fibre channel, all sanboot protocols, many download protocols,
and several image supporters via these #undef's in the
src/config/local/general.h file:

FCMGMT_CMD
NET_PROTO_FCOE

SANBOOT_PROTO_ISCSI
SANBOOT_PROTO_AOE
SANBOOT_PROTO_IB_SRP
SANBOOT_PROTO_FCP

DOWNLOAD_PROTO_TFTP
DOWNLOAD_PROTO_HTTPS
DOWNLOAD_PROTO_FTP
DOWNLOAD_PROTO_TFTM
DOWNLOAD_PROTO_SLAM

IMAGE_MULTIBOOT
IMAGE_AOUT
IMAGE_WINCE
IMAGE_EFI

I've also added this #undef to console.h for good measure:

CONSOLE_SERIAL

Furthermore, I've tried building the 82543GC iPXE ROM, and that one
fails as well with the exact same symptoms (rom and mrom don't work,
but ISO does).

Next, I tried turning on Virtualbox's pxe debug ("VBoxManage modifyvm
<vmname> --biospxedebug on"), but don't see any new information in
Virtualbox's logs.

And finally I've dropped back from Virtualbox v4.1.8 to v4.0.16 - same
symptoms....

Does anyone have advice on where to go now?  I'd really like to use
iPXE in combination with virtio-net in Virtualbox.

Thank you!