[ipxe-devel] strange behavior (regression?) with SeaBIOS + iPXE + WDSNBP.COM

[Laszlo Ersek]

Hi All,

On 11/18/19 18:58, Laszlo Ersek wrote:
> On 11/16/19 01:59, Michael Brown wrote:
>> On 15/11/2019 21:49, Laszlo Ersek wrote:
>>> (Right now, my own env is a minimal "mock" setup, with a semi-random
>>> WDSNBP.COM binary extracted from a long-term Windows Server 2012 R2
>>> virtual machine of mine. Nothing beyond serving that binary up with
>>> libvirt / dnsmasq is configured, so the setup is not nearly a "real" WDS
>>> one.)
>>
>> I'm very happy to work in a minimal mock setup, if it's sufficient to
>> reproduce the problem.  Most of my test setups are built that way already.
> 
> Apologies, I was unclear. My personal env is minimal to the point of not
> reproducing the problem. I used my environment only for checking the
> DBGC output (code and data size) in pxe_start_nbp(). In my env, the
> above-referenced WDSNBP.COM binary tries to contact the WDS server, and
> then cleanly gives up. I don't see any looping.
> 
> I've sent out some requests internally, for more information.

This issue has now been resolved. The problem was related to WDSNBP.COM.

There are apparently multiple versions of WDSNBP.COM in common (?) use. For example:

(1) size: 31,140 bytes
    sha256: 75ccf88f9ceefcf02089b6f859ebbdb39eba05f63ebeda48c3f7cc318e4bf2b4
    shipped with: Windows Server 2008 R2 (possibly as an upgrade?)

(2) size: 31,124
    sha256: 44d07502bb87c9e89c68f0d101fb33636dc389b5607e6c173524e6506bcb2f1c
    shipped with: Windows Server 2008 R2 (possibly as an upgrade?)

(3) size: 30,832 bytes
    sha256: 2b2fb3a7cfba1ef640bcb5d75050e57c79ff639ec621b0162f837c2c889ca178
    shipped with: Windows Server 2012 R2

With WDSNBP.COM consistently upgraded to version (3), in the WDS environment that originally experienced the issue, the symptoms have disappeared.

Thank you Michael for your help!
Laszlo