[ipxe-devel] Sanboot And ISO Images?

[Andrew Bobulsky]

On Mon, Apr 7, 2014 at 1:26 AM, Dyweni - iPXE-Devel
<jeSF37HmaCeb at dyweni.com> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> Trying to boot an ISO image (memtest86+-5.01.iso) using sanboot.
>
> I've tried http://.../<uncompressed isofile> which fails.
> I've also written (using dd) that iso file to a new 8MB ISCSI LUN and tried
> that with iscsi:<ip>::::<san uri> which also fails.
>
> In both cases, I get the following:
>
> -----
> ...
> INT13 drive 80 contains an ISO9660 filesystem; treating as CD-ROM
> INT13 drive 80 has an El Torito boot catalog at LBA 0000001a
> INT13 drive 80 (naturally 80) registered with C/H/S geometry 0/0/0
> INT13 drive 80 added to drive count: 1 HDDs, 0 FDDs
> Registered SAN device 0x80
> Booting from SAN device 0x80
>
> INT 13 drive 80 invalid blocksize (2048) for non-extended read/write
> INT13,02 (80) failed with status 01
> INT13 drive 80 could not read MBR (status 01)
> INT13 drive 80 El Torito requires emulation type 02
> Boot from SAN device 0x80 failed: Operation not supported
> (http://ipxe.org/3c852003)
> INT13 drive 80 unregistered
> Unregistered SAN device 0x80
> ...
> -----
>
>
> I'm using latest master version... git commit 93acbd5
>
> Any ideas where to look / what to try now?
>
>
>
>
> --
> Thanks,
> Dyweni

Hello Dyweni,

I've had limited success in the past by mapping an ISO-based SAN
device as a drive number that the BIOS is more likely to consider to
be a CD drive.  I forget off hand which drive it is, exactly, but
something like:

sanboot --drive 0xa0 --no-describe http://server/directory/file.iso
-or-
sanboot --drive 0xe0 --no-describe http://server/directory/file.iso

The --no-describe flag is recommended for HTTP SAN devices, but not
strictly necessary as far as I'm aware.

Anyway!  As for a suggestion on what you might try; I'd suggest taking
a few levels of abstraction out of the mix to simplify things.

A while back, Michael completed a set of patches for Memtest86+ that
allows it to function as a proper PXE NBP.  It'll even return back to
the PXE bootloader when it's done!  Not sure if they were ever merged
into the mainline Memtest project, but I seem to recall various
reports of great success :)

You can grab a binary here: http://boot.ipxe.org/memtest.0

You can run it directly from that URL, or from your own server with a
command like:

chain http://server/directory/memtest.0

And of course, there's always the source up on the iPXE git repo.

Best Regards,
Andrew Bobulsky