[syslinux] EFI: ipxe + syslinux = Failed to read blocks: 0xC

[Patrick Masotta]

>>>
 My assumtion was that PXE
 booting works like this:
 
 1 - ROM FW broadcasts a DCHP request
 2 - ROM Receives a reply 'filename=ipxe.efi'
 3 - ROM Loads 'ipxe.efi' through tftp
 4 - ROM invokes the downloaded image
 5 - iPXE starts and broadcasts a DHCP request
 6 - iPXE receives the reply 'filename=uri:syslinux.efi'
 7 - iPXE loads syslinux.efi from supplied URI
 8 - iPXE invokes the downloaded image
 9 - from here on, only syslinux is running.
<<<

my guess was that probably 5-6-7 is in this case were performed by the FW
and not by iPXE code
 
>>>
 Of course, the FW provides the UEFI API for basic disk and network 
 access and so on, but it is not a multitasking system is it? After step 
 5 I did not expect the ROM FW would do anything with the DHCP responses 
 to requests that were sent by iPXE.
 <<< 

it is not multitask but it's all about the EFI protocols you decide to use and how you do so...

>>>
 I can set the filename to http://<ip:port>/<path>/syslinux.efi and still
  see the same result. The HP ROM FW can only do tftp, so it must be iPXE 
 that's downloading and running syslinux.efi.
 <<<
that's a good point; then it's not loaded by the FW.
 
 >>>
 I used the last patched
 syslinux I could find. According to the 
 information on this list, the official repo is
 
 git://repo.or.cz/syslinux.git and the last
 commit over there is 8072009.
 
 In another message Gene pointed me to another
 repo/branch, which I will try right away.
<<<

Gene message pointed to the last code dealing with the multi-nic issue;
He also offered binaries that probably you should use to rule out 
i.e. any weird compiler version side-efect.
 
 >>>
 > to be able to chainload to syslinux.efi when it's iPXEthe one that
 > makes the transfer, loadand launch syslinux.efi
 
 Is this documented somewhere? A bug, a wikientry, a README? I would 
 hate to find out i've been chasing the wrong path the past few weeks.
<<<

I can't say; I'm not really following iPXE.


>>> 
 (On a side note, hoping not to offend anyone:)
 
 I get the impression that UEFI and Netbooting Linux is very much in an
 Alpha state at this moment, given the amount of unofficial patches, 
 knowledge buried in mailing lists and sensitive combinations of
 versions  that leads to working systems.
 Right now I'm having flash backs to the  early days of 1.x.y kernels with night-long
 compiling sessions in the  hope of getting some piece of hardware to work.
 
 Those were the days... ;-)
 >>>

The whole UEFI thing is still a moving target but I think 
UEFI PXE is better than alpha ;-)

Best,
Patrick