[ipxe-devel] Addendum [was Re: Dual BIOS and EFI boot ISO]

Sun Jan 29 20:02:01 UTC 2017

My understanding of that patch is that it adds on to the default iso,
so when building with .eiso it should also include .lkrn versions

I read it as if make bin/ipxe.iso && make bin-x86_64-efi/ipxe.efi &&
make bin-x86_64-efi/ipxe.eiso
Would generate bin-x86_64-efi/ipxe.eiso that works in both efi and
bios mode, if not it is something that gets added that disables the
bios boot, modifying the iso to both have bootx64.efi and the old ones
 should not be difficult, however there might be lot's of gotchas and
need for testing.

What about using a usb drive/image instead?

On Sun, Jan 29, 2017 at 8:46 PM, Dean Westhead <dean at westhead.net> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> Unless I am missing g something, that patch allows an ISO to be built that
> will boot on an EFI configured system... And I have applied the patch and
> created that successfully.
>
> Unfortunately that same ISO will not boot on a BIOS configured system....
> Unless I am missing something in the patch.
>
> I have to build a second ISO to boot from a BIOS system.... And that ISO
> will not boot on an EFI system.
>
> Is there an option somewhere to build one ISO that boots on both?
>
> Dean.
>
>
> Sent from Nine
> ________________________________
> From: Christian Nilsson <nikize at gmail.com>
> Sent: 29 Jan 2017 19:41
> To: Dean Westhead
> Cc: James A. Peltier; ipxe-devel
>
> Subject: Re: [ipxe-devel] Addendum [was Re: Dual BIOS and EFI boot ISO]
>
> Didn't Christian Hesse already point you to a possible patch to do
> this?: https://github.com/ipxe/ipxe/pull/50
>
> It is true that you will need 2 different ipxe binaries embeded into
> the iso (one for pcbios and one for efi)
> However the above patch does just that, with the gotcha that each of
> the binaries must be built first (the build dependency does not yet
> work for this build target)
>
> On Sun, Jan 29, 2017 at 8:36 PM, Dean Westhead <dean at westhead.net> wrote:
>> Hi James,
>>
>> Yes that is exactly what I am trying to do.
>>
>> I must admit that I have no idea how Centos (or the other distributions),
>> do
>> this.
>>
>> Dean.
>>
>> Sent from Nine
>> ________________________________
>> From: "James A. Peltier" <jpeltier at sfu.ca>
>> Sent: 29 Jan 2017 18:28
>> To: Dean Westhead
>> Cc: Oliver Rath; ipxe-devel
>> Subject: Re: [ipxe-devel] Addendum [was Re: Dual BIOS and EFI boot ISO]
>>
>> You are trying to create an ISO image that supports both BIOS and UEFI
>> boot
>> modes, similar to how a CentOS 7 ISO image is able to boot both.  This is
>> not possible given how iPXE currently creates it's ISO images.  As far as
>> I
>> am aware, the ISOs to not contain relocatable code that can allow for a
>> unified entry point for both platforms.  Perhaps I am wrong in this, but I
>> don't see any way to do it currently.
>>
>> ----- On 29 Jan, 2017, at 01:18, Dean Westhead <dean at westhead.net> wrote:
>>
>> Hi Oliver,
>>
>> Thanks for that info.
>>
>>  have already done that part and the BIOS ISO and the EFI ISO works fine
>> and
>> boots and detects what system it is on etc.
>>
>> The problem I have is the part that in that forum that states :
>>
>> "But as far as the iPXE Binary goes, you need to go up one level to the
>> DHCP
>> server"
>>
>> The problem I have is that in our server environment, we dont use DHCP ...
>> everything has a static IP.
>>
>> That is not a problem with iPXE .... I have an embeded script that when
>> the
>> ISO is booted it opens a console and asks the user for the IP, subnet
>> mask,
>> gateway and DNS server. It then uses this
>> info to open the NIC, connect to the network and chain the menus etc from
>> our central build server.
>>
>> This all works fine if I boot either the BIOS ISO or the EFI ISO and the
>> servers build fine depending on which environment they are booted into.
>>
>> What I am now trying to do is not have two different ISO's .... one for
>> BIOS
>> and one for EFI.
>>
>> I would like to boot one ISO and that ISO will detect and run either the
>> BIOS boot sequence or the EFI sequence. I basically need an ISO that will
>> boot and do the function of the DHCP server by loading the correct iPXE
>> binary for either
>> BIOS or EFI.
>>
>> This may not be possible but so far I have not found anything that iPXE
>> couldnt do !
>>
>> Thanks.
>>
>> Dean.
>>
>>
>>
>> ________________________________
>> From: "Oliver Rath" <oliver at greenunit.de>
>> To: "ipxe-devel" <ipxe-devel at lists.ipxe.org>
>> Sent: Sunday, 29 January, 2017 07:12:51
>> Subject: [ipxe-devel] Addendum [was Re:  Dual BIOS and EFI boot ISO]
>>
>> Hi Dean,
>>
>> you can also use the DHCP Client Architecture option (code 93) will
>> indicate
>> the client architecture as specified by RFC 4578, see the NOTES here:
>> http://www.ipxe.org/cfg/platform
>>
>> Hth,
>>
>> Oliver
>>
>>
>> On 28.01.2017 20:32, Dean Westhead wrote:
>>
>> Hi,
>>
>> I am able to create an iPXE BIOS bootable iso and a iPXE EFI bootable ISO
>> ... is there a way to create one ISO that will boot on both environments
>> and
>> detect which one needs booting ?
>>
>> I know that the major linux distributions do this with their build media
>> but
>> is this possible with the iPXE ?
>>
>> Thanks.
>>
>> Dean.
>>
>>
>>
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>>
>>
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>>
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>>
>> --
>> James A. Peltier
>> IT Services - Research Computing Group
>> Simon Fraser University - Burnaby Campus
>> Phone   : 604-365-6432
>> Fax     : 778-782-3045
>> E-Mail  : jpeltier at sfu.ca
>> Website : http://www.sfu.ca/itservices
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