The iPXE codebase has code for things like UNDI ('legacy' bios generic network
stack) and SNP/NII for UEFI. As far as code running targeting these, the nic
vendor shouldn't matter, because they abstract away their differences in their
uefi driver.
The ipxe code also strives to port in specific drivers, that bypass the generic
and target the network hardware more like linux would. iPXE does this so it
could boot from usb key or actually get flashed and be? the firmware driver of
an adapter card.
When building ipxe from source, you specify your target name:
make bin-x864_64-efi/ipxe.efi
That builds an ipxe with every driver bundled in and tries to use specific
driver for each possible device.
make bin-x86_64-efi/snponly.efi
Builds a binary suitable only for chainloader, delegating the network hardware
operation to the implementation provided by the firmware rather than trying to
do direct driver binding.
With default config options:
jjohnson2@wirbelwind:~/devel/ipxe/src$ ls -lh bin-x86_64-efi/*.efi
-rw-rw-r-- 1 jjohnson2 jjohnson2 1.1M Jun 2 14:13 bin-x86_64-efi/ipxe.efi
-rw-rw-r-- 1 jjohnson2 jjohnson2 234K Jun 2 14:13 bin-x86_64-efi/snponly.efi
The snponly.efi is much smaller (my production build is smaller still, I think
my config drops some features that I don't use)
________________________________
From: Thomas HUMMEL <thomas.hum...@pasteur.fr>
Sent: Wednesday, June 2, 2021 1:14 PM
To: xcat-user@lists.sourceforge.net <xcat-user@lists.sourceforge.net>
Subject: Re: [xcat-user] [External] Re: xCAT 2.16.2 new xNBA issue
Hello,
thanks for your answer.
Let me get this straight: basically you're saying that xnba can either
use ipxe.efi which would somehow user its own nic driver vs snponly.efi
which would rely on the built-in nic driver or something like this ?
I did indeed substitute xnba.efi with the one coming from the
xnba-undi-1.0.3 package (just the file, which is a dirty fix I know).
Thanks for your help
--
TH
On 02/06/2021 18:36, Jarrod Johnson wrote:
> I decided to take a peek and note that the efi binary is pretty large,
> so I guess it built ipxe.efi instead of 'snponly.efi', which may
> complicate uefi boots (it at least means having to tftp down 10x as much
> content before http can begin, which somewhat reduces the point of ipxe
> chain booting). ipxe.efi will try to use the 'good' drivers for every
> network device while snponly.efi will try to hook the generic uefi
> protocols provided by the devices.
>
> When the 'good' drivers work, it generally does have somewhat better
> performance, but I have generally better luck with the snponly.efi builds.
>
> Might want to roll back to
> https://apc01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fxcat.org%2Ffiles%2Fxcat%2Frepos%2Fyum%2F2.16%2Fxcat-dep%2Fxnba-undi-1.0.3-131028.noarch.rpm&data=04%7C01%7Cjjohnson2%40lenovo.com%7C670c545b49d9431173a608d925ea22b8%7C5c7d0b28bdf8410caa934df372b16203%7C1%7C0%7C637582509812053894%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C1000&sdata=NMbStO8pBhneWbPy091jtS5LW7qtrax4kaDincBYtuw%3D&reserved=0
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> for
> now, might be also interesting to build an snponly.efi instead of
> ipxe.efi for a test..
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> *From:* Thomas HUMMEL <thomas.hum...@pasteur.fr>
> *Sent:* Wednesday, June 2, 2021 10:52 AM
> *To:* xcat-user@lists.sourceforge.net <xcat-user@lists.sourceforge.net>
> *Subject:* [External] Re: [xcat-user] xCAT 2.16.2 new xNBA issue
> So, basically, for me:
>
> Supermicro H12DST-B with Intel 10G X550T (rev 01) and BIOS configured in
> full UEFI mode with new xNBA:
>
> a) does not boot if FW 1.93 and PXE version 2.4.16
>
> b) does boot if PXE upgraded to 2.4.44 but after what seems an anormaly
> long time spent in that stage:
>
>
> downloading NBP file : 10s
> xNBA initializing devices : 15s
> start of osimage fetch : 15s later
>
> whereas regardless of PXE version, with old xNBA systems boot and spend
> max 1s in xNBA stage.
>
> What do you think about it ?
>
> Thanks for your help
>
> --
> Thomas HUMMEL
>
> On 02/06/2021 14:34, Thomas HUMMEL wrote:
>> Hello, thanks for your answer.
>>
>> On 01/06/2021 22:42, Nathan A Besaw wrote:
>>
>>> xNBA 1.20.1 is almost identical to iPXE 1.20.1 with minimal
>>> customization.
>>
>> I'm by no means a PXE expert : am I right assuming iPXE and/or xNBA use
>> some PXE firmware built in into some EEPROM on the nic or board ?
>>
>>
>>> Are there any differences in the BIOS boot mode settings between the
>>> servers that are working and the servers that are failing?
>>> Legacy mode vs Legacy + UEFI mode vs UEFI only mode?
>>
>> No. They both boot in full UEFI mode (no legacy, no dual). Some may have
>> a different version but the issue occurs across the same BIOS version too.
>>
>>
>>> Do you have better results if you downgrade xNBA to the previous version?
>>
>> I indeed manage to workaround the issue by savagely replacing xnba.efi
>> by the one I extracted from the 2.15 branch, which I believe was already
>> xnba-undi-1.0.3-131028.noarch.rpm
>>
>> Supermicro provided me as well with:
>>
>> - nic EEPROM new firmare (I did not use nor flash)
>> - new PXE firmware which I flashed: this made the new xNBA works as
>> expected.
>>
>> They stated that:
>>
>> Batch 1 was shipped with a different EEPROM and PXE option ROIM version
>> then Batch 2 and 3.
>> Batch one has FW 1.93 and PXE version 2.4.16 while batch 2 and 3 will
>> have FW 2.2 and PXE version 2.4.44
>>
>> I still have to test flashing this new PXE fw to a batch2 node (which
>> worked with the new xNBA but spent >30s in it) and see if it fixes the
>> slow initialization.
>>
>> Thanks
>>
>> --
>> Thomas HUMMEL
>>
>>
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>>
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