[syslinux] lpxelinux hangs under Intel Boot Agent 1.3.81 (2.1 build 089) on Dell Optiplex 990 BIOS A16

Alexander Perlis aperlis at math.lsu.edu
Fri Jul 11 10:17:22 PDT 2014


On 07/10/2014 06:39 PM, Gene Cumm wrote:
> On Thu, Jul 10, 2014 at 7:24 PM, H. Peter Anvin <hpa at zytor.com> wrote:
>> On 07/10/2014 04:07 PM, Alexander Perlis wrote:
>>> Trying to PXE boot a Dell Optiplex 990 with BIOS A16, which has Intel
>>> Boot Agent 1.3.81 (2.1 build 089). It gets network and launches
>>> lpxelinux.0, I see the PXELINUX banner line, but there it hangs.
>>
>> Could you get a packet trace from the server, to see if you see any
>> traffic at all before it dies?
>
> If the traffic appears like any responses to the client after
> lpxelinux.0 starts running are probably ignored by the client PC, try
> 4.10-pre22 and report the value of flags and the first 3 octets of the
> MAC address.  This may require the same workaround that some other
> models needed (specifically a 760).
>

Trace shows that lpxelinux.0 6.03-pre18 is transferred, and after that 
there is only ARP traffic: a "gratuitous" ARP announcement by the 
client, and then a string of ARP requests and replies in which the 
client is asking for the MAC of the PXE server, about every 3 seconds, 
for about 2 minutes, after which I see a message on the client that the 
boot failed and to press a key to try again. (So I previously 
misreported: it's not a total hang...)

Switching to 4.10-pre22, there is no lpxelinux.0, but instead using 
pxelinux.0 4.10-pre22, flags is 0xdc1b, and the first three octets of 
the client MAC are 18:03:73 (which tshark reports as "Dell_"). Note that 
looking at the packet capture in this case, after transferring 
pxelinux.0, there is only that initial "gratuitous" ARP announcement, 
then the wire goes silent, and this time it seems like a true hang, no 
ctrl-alt-del, had to press the power button to reboot.

Alex


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