[ipxe-devel] Booting ipxe on "Serva"

[Christian Nilsson]

On Mon, Feb 19, 2018 at 4:19 PM, Aydin Cevikkalp <acevikka at uni-koeln.de> wrote:
> Dear ipxe Team,
>
> first of all, thank you for your great work; i really appreciate this open
> source project, because it makes working with pxe a lot more easier.
>
> Im using a programm called "Serva" (Professional) [1], as a PXE-Server
> solution on Windows. After i tried ipxe(with a client) on it i could
> recognize a significant  enhancement of speed with some images. Its really
> nice.
>
> Well now my Problem:
>
> When i am booting PE Based Images (like Windows 10 ...) i get the error
> shown in the attachement. On the official website [2] (under point 8.7.4-
> BCD Not Found) are some reasons listed, which can cause this error.
>
> 1. I Have no other DHCP Server, its just the one with Serva on it.
> 2. The BINL option is activated.
> 3. Booting all images without ipxe works fine, i get the error only with
> ipxe.
> 4. Im not using Oracle Virtual Box.
>
> The problem seems to be, that after transfering "pxeboot.n12" (which should
> transfer "\_SERVA_\bootmgr.exe" and "\_SERVA_\boot\bcd") only transfers
> "\_SERVA_\bootmgr.exe" and "\_SERVA_\boot\bcd" is not transfered, because
> its getting searched for some reason under the root folder \boot\bcd. Well
> it is possible just to create this folder "boot" in the root directory but
> then it is just possible to boot this single Image (because all other images
> have their own bcds in "\_SERVA_\boot\bcd". And everytime im triying to boot
> another image it always finds the "boot\bcd" which doesnt load the right
> boot.wim. [3] (under point "BIOS")
>
> Just to clarify, booting all images without ipxe works fine, i get the error
> only with ipxe.
>
> I would be very happy for any advice.
>
> [1] http://www.vercot.com/~serva/
> [2] https://www.vercot.com/~serva/an/WindowsPXE1.html
> [3] https://www.vercot.com/~serva/an/WindowsPXE2.html
>
> Kind Regards
> Aydin Cevikkalp

For booting windows PE I would strongly recommend checking out
wimboot, it will take boot.wim, boot.sdi and a BCD file and boot it
from a virtual fs, this is in most cases done over http which
increases speed even more then when using TFTP.

iPXE has lots of diffrent build targets for different boot cases, so
might be good if we start out to clarify which iPXE binary you are
using, and also that you are using the latest version (git master is
always recommended source to build from)

/Christian