In summary, my issue specifically is when I PXE boot a UEFI system, I get stuck at a grub> prompt. It appears that the UEFI systems aren't loading the grub.cfg file and I'll be damned if I can figure out why.
Since 22.04 is no longer providing us a mini.iso or netboot.iso option, I've been building (in our lab) a POC of the 'new' way to automate deployment of systems. For the most part I've been following the instructions from these two URLs:
- https://www.molnar-peter.hu/en/ubuntu-jammy-netinstall-pxe.html
- https://www.golinuxcloud.com/uefi-pxe-boot-server-ubuntu-20-04-cloud-init/
For now my PoC is all sitting in a small Hyper-V lab. The network config is pretty simple in that I have a pfSense FW giving my lab network access to the internet and everything behind my FW is on a closed (private) network. This allows me full control over things like DHCP and such.
On what I'm calling my PXE sever, I have installed:
- apache2
- isc-dhcp-server
- tftpd-hpa
TFTP Directory structure:
├── boot
│ ├── bootx64.efi
│ ├── grub
│ │ ├── font.pf2
│ │ ├── grub.cfg
│ │ ├── unicode.pf2
│ │ └── x86_64-efi
│ │ ├── command.lst
│ │ ├── crypto.lst
│ │ ├── fs.lst
│ │ └── terminal.lst
│ ├── grubx64.efi
│ ├── jammy
│ │ ├── initrd
│ │ └── vmlinuz
│ ├── ldlinux.c32 -> ./syslinux/bios/ldlinux.c32
│ ├── libutil.c32 -> ./syslinux/bios/libutil.c32
│ ├── menu.c32 -> ./syslinux/bios/menu.c32
│ ├── pxelinux.0
│ ├── pxelinux.cfg
│ │ └── default
│ └── syslinux
│ └── bios
│ ├── ldlinux.c32
│ ├── libutil.c32
│ └── menu.c32
└── grub -> ./boot/grub/
/etc/dhcp/dhcpd.conf
allow booting;
allow bootp;
option arch code 93 = unsigned integer 16;
subnet 172.16.1.0 netmask 255.255.255.0 {
range 172.16.1.100 172.16.1.110;
}
host test1 {
hardware ethernet 00:15:5d:01:21:07;
if option arch = 00:07 {
filename "boot/bootx64.efi";
} else {
filename "boot/pxelinux.0";
}
next-server 172.16.1.50;
fixed-address 172.16.1.60;
}
host test2 {
hardware ethernet 00:15:5d:01:21:08;
if option arch = 00:07 {
filename "boot/bootx64.efi";
} else {
filename "boot/pxelinux.0";
}
next-server 172.16.1.50;
fixed-address 172.16.1.61;
}
NOTE: I want DHCP to be issued by my pfSense server but I discovered the only way to get isc-dhcp-server to start was to specify some sort or range. I need to resolve this but for now it does seem that since everything is on the same subnet things are working well enough with this config.
/etc/default/tftpd-hpa
# /etc/default/tftpd-hpa
TFTP_USERNAME="tftp"
TFTP_DIRECTORY="/tftp"
TFTP_ADDRESS=":69"
TFTP_OPTIONS="--secure
/etc/default/isc-dhcp-server
# Defaults for isc-dhcp-server (sourced by /etc/init.d/isc-dhcp-server)
# Path to dhcpd's config file (default: /etc/dhcp/dhcpd.conf).
#DHCPDv4_CONF=/etc/dhcp/dhcpd.conf
#DHCPDv6_CONF=/etc/dhcp/dhcpd6.conf
# Path to dhcpd's PID file (default: /var/run/dhcpd.pid).
#DHCPDv4_PID=/var/run/dhcpd.pid
#DHCPDv6_PID=/var/run/dhcpd6.pid
# Additional options to start dhcpd with.
# Don't use options -cf or -pf here; use DHCPD_CONF/ DHCPD_PID instead
#OPTIONS=""
# On what interfaces should the DHCP server (dhcpd) serve DHCP requests?
# Separate multiple interfaces with spaces, e.g. "eth0 eth1".
INTERFACESv4="eth0"
INTERFACESv6="eth0"
/tftp/boot/grub/grub.cfg
set timeout=30
loadfont unicode
set menu_color_normal=white/black
set menu_color_highlight=black/light-gray
menuentry "Install Ubuntu Jammy (22.04)" {
set gfxpayload=keep
linux /boot/jammy/vmlinuz ip=dhcp cloud-config-url=/dev/null url=http://172.16.1.50/isos/jammy/ubuntu-22.04-live-server-amd64.iso autoinstall ds="nocloud-net;s=http://172.16.1.50/cloud-init/jammy/" --- # Don't forget the slash at the end.
initrd /boot/jammy/initrd
}
tcpdump -n -i eth0 port 69
tcpdump: verbose output suppressed, use -v[v]... for full protocol decode
listening on eth0, link-type EN10MB (Ethernet), snapshot length 262144 bytes
01:26:56.188414 IP 172.16.1.60.1332 > 172.16.1.50.69: TFTP, length 59, RRQ "boot/bootx64.efi" octet tsize 0 blksize 1482 windowsize 4
01:26:56.189458 IP 172.16.1.60.1333 > 172.16.1.50.69: TFTP, length 51, RRQ "boot/bootx64.efi" octet blksize 1482 windowsize 4
01:26:56.225401 IP 172.16.1.60.1334 > 172.16.1.50.69: TFTP, length 50, RRQ "boot/grubx64.efi" octet blksize 512 windowsize 4
grub> echo $prefix
(tftp,172.16.1.50)/boot/grub
For what it's worth, I have validated that the Apache2 directories are being served correctly and in fact, with the above config I am able to PXE boot BIOS based systems using the pxelinux.0.
For whatever reason UEFI systems (or in my case Hyper-V Gen2) get 'stuck' at the grub> menu.
Any help or advice would be appreciated. I know I'm close.
Cheers!
