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EFI PXE boot

Posted: 8. Jan 2015, 09:10
by skinger
Anybody has got experience with how to network book a VM in EFI mode. I have setup a DHCP+TFTP server on one of the VM and am able to network boot another VM (on same network) in BIOS mode.

DHCP Discover request is received by DHCP server in case of BIOS boot. However no such request is received in case of EFI boot mode. Am I missing anything?

15:22:58.402308 IP (tos 0x0, ttl 64, id 256, offset 0, flags [none], proto UDP (17), length 405)
0.0.0.0.68 > 255.255.255.255.67: [udp sum ok] BOOTP/DHCP, Request from 08:00:27:2a:bc:a1, length 377, xid 0x223cdb08, secs 4, Flags [none] (0x0000)
Client-Ethernet-Address 08:00:27:2a:bc:a1
Vendor-rfc1048 Extensions
Magic Cookie 0x63825363
DHCP-Message Option 53, length 1: Discover
MSZ Option 57, length 2: 1472
ARCH Option 93, length 2: 0
NDI Option 94, length 3: 1.2.1
Vendor-Class Option 60, length 32: "PXEClient:Arch:00000:UNDI:002001"
CLASS Option 77, length 4: "iPXE"
Parameter-Request Option 55, length 21:
Subnet-Mask, Default-Gateway, Domain-Name-Server, LOG
Hostname, Domain-Name, RP, Vendor-Option
Vendor-Class, TFTP, BF, Option 128
Option 129, Option 130, Option 131, Option 132
Option 133, Option 134, Option 135, Option 175
Option 203
T175 Option 175, length 27: 177.5.1.128.134.16.14.33.1.1.16.1.2.39.1.1.235.3.1.0.0.23.1.1.21.1.1
Client-ID Option 61, length 7: ether 08:00:27:2a:bc:a1
GUID Option 97, length 17: 0.203.72.229.200.180.132.64.62.184.242.72.147.62.82.136.230
END Option 255, length 0

Re: EFI PXE boot

Posted: 8. Jan 2015, 09:17
by skinger
VirtualBox Version - 4.3.20 with Oracle VM Virtualbox extension installed.

Re: EFI PXE boot

Posted: 9. Jan 2015, 15:31
by skinger
Any help is much appreciated. Is this an issue with VirtualBox?

Re: EFI PXE boot

Posted: 9. Jan 2015, 16:08
by Perryg
Depends on what the host and guest are.

Re: EFI PXE boot

Posted: 9. Jan 2015, 18:09
by skinger
host OS - Windows 7
guest - RHEL 6.2 x64
DHCP+TFTP server - RHEL 6.2 x64

Re: EFI PXE boot

Posted: 9. Jan 2015, 18:20
by Perryg
VirtualBox EFI was intended to used with the Mac as guest, however I have and often do create Linux guests in EFI mode, but this takes a lot of work. I have not tried to use EFI in PXE before but have my doubts it will work. You really should ask the DEVs about this but keep in mind that the intended use for EFI was not Windows or Linux so I am not sure how they will address this.

Try IRC or mail list from the link below.
https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Community

Re: EFI PXE boot

Posted: 12. Jan 2015, 08:31
by skinger
Thanks Perryg. I'll take it forward with DEVs.

Re: EFI PXE boot

Posted: 25. Feb 2015, 23:51
by AOINEKO
Hello, one partial solution is to initiate ipxe.efi, from the EFI shell (can be done automatically with startup.nsh), the solution is not complete because at this point, ipxe is not capable of chainload another EFI executable, only some image types, like Linux kernels with EFI STUB, can be loaded, therefore cannot load SYSLinux (syslinux.efi), GRUB2 (grubx64.efi) or any other EFI executable, but is enough to boot any recent Linux distribution, WINPE (through wimboot, abother part of the ipxe project) and some other utilities (like memtest86.efi). The capacity to chainload another EFI executable is being developed for ipxe and syslinux. GRUB2 EFI is the only EFI loader with network capacity that I found to be able to chainload another EFI executable, unfortunately cannot initiate network access in most machines when executed locally (it works perfectly when executed from network). Best regards, Diego.