RE: IPFire install over PXE

[Horace Michael <horace.michael@gmx.com>]

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Good morning,
Tested, here are the results:
1. Laptop booting ipxe.kpxe from "latesl" folder available at  http://mirror0.ipfire.org/releases/ipfire-boot/latest/ - ALL OK. Even more - I see the message for activating the hidden menu defined in premenu.cfg. 


2. SBC (PCEngines APU1C2) - booting ipxe.kpxe from http://mirror0.ipfire.org/releases/ipfire-boot/v1.0/ - during the timeout from premenu.cfg I can press any key and setect TEXT submenu (the one that uses menu.c32) - after that I can select "Install with serial console..."
- ALL OK (no duplicated characters)

3. SBC (PCEngines APU1C2) - booting ipxe.kpxe from http://mirror0.ipfire.org/releases/ipfire-boot/v1.0/ -  no key pressed during timeout message from premenu.cfg - I am redirected to TEXT menu from where I can select "Install with serial console..."
- ALL OK (no duplicated characters)

Steps 2 and 3 repeteated with ipxe.kpxe from "latest" - ALL works fine except some duplicated characters while loading cfg files and pxelinux.0 from boot.ipfire.org. 

Dropped a request to PCEngine to check their BIOS for that duplicated characters thing.
But I can also live with this behavior...

Many thanks for quick solution!
Best regards,
Horace


-----Original Message-----
From: Michael Tremer [mailto:michael.tremer(a)ipfire.org] 
Sent: 25 august 2016 0:04
To: Horace Michael <horace.michael(a)gmx.com>; development(a)lists.ipfire.org
Subject: Re: IPFire install over PXE

Hi Horace,

On Wed, 2016-08-24 at 21:38 +0300, Horace Michael wrote:
> Hi all,
> After several tests (using a normal PC but also a SBC with no 
> videocard -
> APU1C2 from PCEngines) on installing IPFIre over PXE I’ve ended up 
> several possible faults that lead to PXE not working:
> 
> Point A.
> pxelinux.0 points to a wrong server: server returns "502 Bad Gateway"

I have seen that bug before but couldn't find where that URL was in the short time that I had available.

But I found it now and fixed it :)

http://git.ipfire.org/?p=ipfire.org.git;a=commitdiff;h=e7c9ed3cc22f028750a6433a830eab585b9c32fc

> Here are the outputs:
> 
> 
> TFTP prefix: http://boot.dev.ipfire.org/ Unable to locate 
> configuration file
> 
> Boot failed: press a key to retry, or wait for reset...
> .........
> 
> 
> Point B.
> Premenu.cfg loaded by menu.gpxe (http://boot.ipfire.org/menu.gpxe ) 
> has default menu the vesa menu and the submenu that should allow me to 
> select between vesa and text are declared hidden. Therefore I can't 
> select the text interface when I am booting from an SBC without video 
> card - only option being the serial console = text menu - menu.c32.
> 
> Extract from premenu.cfg:
> 
> menu hidden
> timeout 30
> 
> menu title Select menu type
> menu autoboot Press any key for options or wait # second{,s}...
> 
> label vesa
>   menu default
>   text help
>   The default graphical boot menu.
>   endtext
>   menu label Graphical menu
>   kernel vesamenu.c32
>   append menu.cfg?arch=i586&platform=pcbios
> 
> label text
>   menu label Text menu
>   text help
>   Use this menu if the graphical menu does not work on your system.
>   endtext
>   kernel menu.c32
>   append menu.cfg?arch=i586&platform=pcbios

Actually the BIOS should tell the menu that it doesn't support graphics AFAIK.

> 
> Point C.
> Old .kpxe files from v1.0 folder
> (http://mirror0.ipfire.org/releases/ipfire-boot/v1.0/) don’t duplicate 
> the characters on screen while the other .kpxe files (including the 
> ones from latest - 
> http://mirror0.ipfire.org/releases/ipfire-boot/latest/ - generate 
> duplicate characters after loading the .kpxe and download from 
> boot.ipfire.org starts.
> 

We discovered that this is a bug of the BIOS of the APU.

On other systems that worked fine.

I think by now this could be a little outdated. If you need sources for our changes and want to update the loader, please have a look here:

http://git.ipfire.org/?p=oddments/ipfire-netboot.git;a=summary

Patches are always welcome :)

> Printscreens and additional details on forum:
> http://forum.ipfire.org/viewtopic.php?f=51&t=15250#p100110
> 
> 
> 
> Best regards,
> Horace

Best,
-Michael