FAI installation on new PCs with UEFI BIOS

[Wolfgang Walkowiak]

Hi,

I am just experiencing the following problem with new PCs (having an
ASUS UEFI BIOS version 2.10.1208 and our cluster's FAI installation.

After activating the PXE-boot in the UEFI BIOS the FAI installation runs
fine. However after a reboot, when the pxelinux menu points to the "boot
from local harddisk" entry, the system hangs when the PXE ROM exits:
"PXE-M0F: Exiting PXE ROM"

When I reboot and skip the PXE Boot, putting the local disk in the first
place in the UEFI boot menu, our Debian Linux installation boots fine.
However, modifying the boot order after the FAI installation
somewhat defeats the purpose of FAI.

I tried to switch the UEFI BIOS to "Other OS" and unloaded the security
keys, to no avail.

Are there any instructions available how to setup pxelinux for FAI such
that I can TFTBOOT and then use the 'boot from local harddrive' entry?
Or do I have to have a parallel syslinux TFTP boot menu setup as suggested
here: http://www.syslinux.org/wiki/index.php/PXELINUX#UEFI ?

I have also seen the following posting on the FAI mailing list:
https://lists.uni-koeln.de/pipermail/linux-fai/2014-February/010294.html

However, this means changing the DHCP configuration after a FAI
installation.

I wonder whether the problem I ran into is specific to the mainboard
(ASUS H81M-(D) Plus 3) or more generic.

Thank you very much for any advice.

Best wishes,

w.w.

==========================================================2015-08-31==19:26==

Dr. Wolfgang Walkowiak Phone: [phone]
Fakultaet IV / Physik Fax : [phone]
Emmy Noether Campus
Universitaet Siegen --> ***@hep.physik.uni-siegen.de
Walter-Flex-Str. 3 ***@gmx.net
57068 Siegen
Germany

=============================================================================

[Thomas Lange]

Post by Wolfgang Walkowiak
Or do I have to have a parallel syslinux TFTP boot menu setup as suggested
here: http://www.syslinux.org/wiki/index.php/PXELINUX#UEFI ?
I wonder whether the problem I ran into is specific to the mainboard
(ASUS H81M-(D) Plus 3) or more generic.

IMO this seems to be a general UEFI problem^Wfeature. All my install
clients still use the legacy BIOS mode. But I know new computers may
not support the legacy mode. I guess syslinux is the best source for
fixing this problem.
I would be happy if you could post your solution here.

[Wolfgang Walkowiak]

Hi Thomas (et al.),

thanks. I just discovered a work-around for my issue with the UEFI
BIOS looking at
http://www.syslinux.org/wiki/index.php/SYSLINUX#LOCALBOOT_type

Basically it suggests to replace the stanca
LOCALBOOT 0
by
LOCALBOOT -1
in the appropriate PXELINUX menu. This causes the BIOS (and also the UEFI
BIOS of the ASUS motherboard we have) to accept the failure of the PXE
boot and move on to the next entry in the boot order. I tested it also
with one of our older PCs without UEFI BIOS for which it worked as well.

This trick saves me from spending some time on debugging a combination of
pxelinux and syslinux boot menus. (Sorry, no recipe for that.)

Cheers,

w.w.

P.S.: Here are the contents of my localboot.inc snippet:

# localboot.inc
label local
MENU LABEL BOOT FROM ^LOCAL HARDDISK
# request booting from local disk -- has issue with UEFI-BIOS
## LOCALBOOT 0
# set LOCALBOOT to -1 to signal failure instead
LOCALBOOT -1

Post by Thomas Lange

Post by Wolfgang Walkowiak
Or do I have to have a parallel syslinux TFTP boot menu setup as suggested
here: http://www.syslinux.org/wiki/index.php/PXELINUX#UEFI ?
I wonder whether the problem I ran into is specific to the mainboard
(ASUS H81M-(D) Plus 3) or more generic.

IMO this seems to be a general UEFI problem^Wfeature. All my install
clients still use the legacy BIOS mode. But I know new computers may
not support the legacy mode. I guess syslinux is the best source for
fixing this problem.
I would be happy if you could post your solution here.
--
regards Thomas

==========================================================2015-09-01==10:27==

Dr. Wolfgang Walkowiak Phone: [phone]
Fakultaet IV / Physik Fax : [phone]
Emmy Noether Campus
Universitaet Siegen --> ***@hep.physik.uni-siegen.de
Walter-Flex-Str. 3 ***@gmx.net
57068 Siegen
Germany

=============================================================================

[Thomas Lange]

Post by Wolfgang Walkowiak
Basically it suggests to replace the stanca
LOCALBOOT 0
by
LOCALBOOT -1

Hi Wolfgang,

I tested this with three of my hardware boxes, and I had no
problems. I will change this also in FAI as the new default
value. Thanks for your help.