[gPXE-devel] [Qemu-devel] Netboot happens twice (first fail) when using etherboot ROMs

Gianni Tedesco gianni.tedesco at citrix.com
Mon Aug 2 12:23:42 EDT 2010


On Sun, 2010-08-01 at 21:27 +0100, Stefan Hajnoczi wrote:
> On Sun, Aug 1, 2010 at 10:44 AM, Michael Tokarev <mjt at tls.msk.ru> wrote:
> > I wonder why with etherboot ROMs, the network boot
> > happens two times (0.12.x), like this:
> >
> > -----
> >  Starting SeaBIOS (version 0.5.1-20100801_125707-gandalf)
> >
> >  Booting from virtio-net.zrom 5.4.4 (GPL) ether...
> >  ROM segment 0xc900 length 0x8000 reloc 0x00000000
> >  Etherboot 5.4.4 (GPL) http://etherboot.org
> >  Drivers: VIRTIO-NET   Images: NBI ELF PXE   Exports: PXE
> >  Protocols: DHCP TFTP
> >  Relocating _text from: [00087780,0009f310) to [07ee8470,07f00000)
> >  Boot from (N)etwork or (Q)uit?
> >
> >  Probing pci nic...
> >  Probing isa nic...
> >  <sleep>
> >  Boot from (N)etwork or (Q)uit?
> >
> >  Probing pci nic...
> >  [virtio-net]I/O address 0x0000c020, IRQ #11
> >  MAC address 52:54:00:12:34:56
> >  Searching for server (DHCP)....
> > -----
> >
> > The boot ROMs supplied with the source works as expected.
> >
> > What's the difference?  Is gpxe behaves differently, or
> > is that a difference in build options?
> 
> Etherboot and gPXE are different codebases.  gPXE was forked from
> Etherboot around 2005 and is now very different.  The Etherboot and
> gPXE behavior cannot always be compared, they are not meant to work
> the same.

The BIOS boot protocol allows to continue from next device if an earlier
boot method doesn't work. In the real hardware the ROM typically only
supports one type of card. Therefore a ROM ought to be loaded and tried
from each NIC until one of the attempts successfully boots or there are
no more to try.

Anyway, you will need to post more info on your setup: what and how many
NIC's, where the ROM binaries came from...

Gianni Tedesco



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