[ipxe-devel] [gPXE] gpxe on USB or HD

[Yadin Flammer]

As I have mentioned previously, using dd to clone the .usb file to the 
usb key results in a blank usb key (sdc1).  On the off chance that the 
entire contents were invisible for some reason, I tried to boot it 
anyway, and simply got a black screen with nothing at all.  Per your 
other email request, a little more detail:

We have a Windows DHCP server which passes PXE to our WDS server.
WDS has several boot and restore images available, which all work fine 
when PXE booting a Dell system normally.
The purpose of iPXE (previously gPXE) is to be able to PXE boot Mac 
systems and use this restore functionality.
This works perfectly when booting gPXE from CD made from the ISO.  As 
USB is more convenient, and not all Mac systems have an optical drive, I 
tried to get this working on USB.

When attempting to use the iPXE ISO on CD, you get as far as choosing 
the PXE boot image to boot from, and then the boot process (loading 
windows progress bar at the bottom) simply never moves.  This indicates 
an issue with iPXE that does not exist with gPXE.  I'm happy to go with 
iPXE if gPXE is simply not going to be workable, but we may need to 
actually get iPXE working on CD then before we move on to USB.
When attempting to boot USB made via dd, you get nothing at all, just 
black.  If you try this same USB on a Dell, you get non system disk or 
disk error, cntl+alt+del to reboot.  Both behaviors are consistent with 
a blank volume which indicates the files aren't invisible, they just 
aren't there.  This would indicate to me either dd in Ubuntu 12LTS is 
broken in some way, or the source .usb file is empty.  A utility on 
Windows that is supposed to be able to open .usb files says it's corrupt 
or the wrong format.

As a fallback, since you can copy the contents of a bootable WinPE ISO 
to a USB stick and simply boot it, I thought I'd try that with gPXE/iPXE.
When attempting to boot a USB device made by copying the CD files to 
USB, you get a black screen with GRUB and a flashing _ in the corner and 
that's it, nothing further happens.  I'm guessing this might be due to 
incorrect pointers for the device type since they are CD files on USB?
When attempting to boot a HD with the CD files copied to it, you're told 
something like no system files found (I don't have it in front me me 
this moment) which again I assume is some device pointer issue.

Hope this helps flesh out the issues and guide some ideas what we might 
try to get things working.
Cheers,
Yadin

-------------------------------------------------------------------
   Yadin Flammer - Systems Administrator
   College of Arts & Architecture, Penn State University
   228 Borland Building              Office Phone: 814-865-0990
   University Park, PA 16802         Dept. Phone:  814-865-1571
   Email: yxf4 at psu.edu               Dept. Fax:    814-863-6227

On 6/13/13 8:17 PM, Michael Brown wrote:
> Yadin Flammer <yxf4 at psu.edu> wrote:
>
>> Thanks for the response.  I have tried ipxe and it also does not work.
>>
>> Trying to dd it to a drive under ubuntu 12 LTS results in a blank
>> drive.  Copying the files from the ISO to the USB results in booting to
>>
>> a black screen with GRUB and a flashing cursor and nothing else.  I
>> tried posting to the ipxe forums but they appear to not be working as
>> no
>> post happens and no error is given as to why.
>>
>> Any advice on getting a USB drive to work with ipxe, as well as getting
>>
>> the forums to work so I can reach a wider audience, are appreciated.
>>
>> Cheers,
>> Yadin
>>
>>
>> On 6/13/2013 1:01 PM, Michael Brown wrote:
>>> On Thursday 13 Jun 2013 17:14:49 Yadin Flammer wrote:
>>>> I've been trying to get gpxe to boot from a USB drive, and even an
>>>> internal hard drive, but no luck.  Using the ISO for a CD works
>>>> perfectly, but a USB key would be much more convenient.  The .usb
>> and
>>>> .dsk files that download appear to be corrupt every time as no
>>>> application can open them (winimage says they are corrupt), or the
>>>> contents when dd to a disk under linux are corrupt.  Copying the
>>>> contents of the .iso to a USB drive or internal HD does not result
>> in a
>>>> bootable system regardless of the format or setup of the drive.
>>>>
>>>> Has anyone managed to make a bootable USB key or internal drive with
>> the
>>>> gpxe environment and if so precisely how?
>>> gPXE has not been maintained for several years.  Please upgrade to
>> iPXE, which
>>> is the replacement for gPXE.
>>>
>>> You won't be able to open the .usb image, since it doesn't contain a
>>> filesystem.  It's a raw disk image; you need to transfer it to the
>> USB key
>>> using dd (or equivalent).  Be aware that this will erase all existing
>> content
>>> of the USB key.
>>>
>>> Michael
> Use dd to transfer the iPXE .usb image to the USB key, then boot from that USB key.  For example, assuming your USB key is /dev/sda, then use
>
>    dd if=bin/ipxe.usb of=/dev/sda
>
> (Warning: /dev/sda is probably your main system disk. Find out which device represents your USB key and use that instead.)
>
> Forum posts by new users are moderated to eliminate spam, which is why yours hasn't appeared yet.
>
> Michael
>

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