HPE Proliant Gen10 Stack Fault Exception during PXE boot with UEFI

Question

I am trying to pxe boot a HPE Proliant Gen10 using UEFI BIOS with RHEL (have tried both 7 and 8) and am getting a stack fault exception after the server receives the first boot file (shimx64.efi):

HPE ProLiant System BIOS U32 v2.42 (01/23/2021) (C) Copyright 1982-2021 Hewlett Packard Enterprise Development LP Early system initialization, please wait...

iLO 5 IPv4:
iLO 5 IPv6:

iLO 5 IPv4: (redacted) iLO 5 IPv6: (redacted)

2%: System Chipset Initialization 4%: UPI Link Initialization - Start 5%: UPI Link Initialization - Complete 7%: Early Processor Initialization 9%: Memory Initialization - Start 10%: 11%: 13%: 14%: 15%: 21%: Memory Initialization - Complete 25%: SMBIOS Table Initialization 28%: USB Controller Initialization 31%: Chipset Root Ports Initialization 35%: HPE SmartMemory Initialization 38%: System Security Initialization 42%: iLO Embedded Health Initialization 45%: ACPI Table Initialization 49%: BIOS Configuration Initialization L 55%: Early PCI Initialization - Start 62%: Early PCI Initialization - Complete 73%: Switching console output to Primary Video. Please wait...

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(C) Copyright 1982-2021 Hewlett Packard Enterprise Development LP HPE ProLiant DL360 Gen10 System ROM Version: U32 v2.42 (01/23/2021) Serial Number: (redacted)

Installed System Memory: 384 GB, Available System Memory: 384 GB

2 Processor(s) detected, 40 total cores enabled, Hyperthreading is enabled Proc 1: Intel(R) Xeon(R) Gold 6248 CPU @ 2.50GHz Proc 2: Intel(R) Xeon(R) Gold 6248 CPU @ 2.50GHz UPI Speed: 10.4 GT/s

Workload Profile: I/O Throughput Power Regulator Mode: Dynamic Power Savings Advanced Memory Protection Mode: Fast Fault Tolerant Memory (ADDDC) Boot Mode: UEFI HPE SmartMemory authenticated in all populated DIMM slots.

For access via BIOS Serial Console: Press 'ESC+9' for System Utilities Press 'ESC+0' for Intelligent Provisioning Press 'ESC+!' for One-Time Boot Menu Press 'ESC+@' for Network Boot

Starting required devices. Please wait, this may take a few moments....

Booting Embedded FlexibleLOM 1 Port 1 : HPE Eth 10/25Gb 2p 640FLR-SFP28 Adptr - NIC (PXE IPv4)

Start PXE over IPv4. Station IP address is (redacted)

Server IP address is (redacted) NBP filename is bootloader/pxe.boot.host/image NBP filesize is 1877432 Bytes Downloading NBP file...

NBP file downloaded successfully.

X64 Exception Type 0x0C - Stack Fault Exception

RCX=0000000000000001 DX=0000000036E13971 R8=00000000A0D29060 R9=000000007B2314F0 RSP=000000007B2315F8 BP=AFAFAFAFAFAFAFAF AX=0000000000000000 BX=000000003932D000 R10=000000007B231558 11=9A02503F3EB2EC9E 12=0000000000000000 13=0000000000000040 R14=00000000982470C0 15=0000000000000001 SI=000000009ED79018 DI=0000000000000E40 CR2=0000000000000000 CR3=00000000A347B000 CR0=80000013 CR4=00000668 CR8=00000000 CS=00000038 DS=00000030 SS=00000030 ES=00000030 RFLAGS=00210286 MSR: 0x1D9 = 00004801, 0x345=000033C5, 0x1C9=00000004

LBRs From To From To 01h 0000000036E0DE86->000000009A1D2174 0000000036E0E4C4->0000000036E0DE23 03h 0000000036E0E977->0000000036E0E4C4 000000007B0FB7AB->0000000036E0E948 05h 000000007B0FB82C->000000007B0FB85E 000000007B0FB738->000000007B0FB80C 07h 000000007B0FB73D->000000007B0FB71B 000000007B0FB863->000000007B0FB73A 09h 000000007B0FB868->000000007B0FB860 000000007B0FB844->000000007B0FB864 0Bh 000000007B0FB738->000000007B0FB80C 000000007B0FB73D->000000007B0FB71B 0Dh 000000007B0FB863->000000007B0FB73A 000000007B0FB868->000000007B0FB860 0Fh 000000007B0FB844->000000007B0FB864 000000009A1D217F->000000009FBAD940

CALL ImageBase ImageName+Offset 00h 0000000000000000 No Image Information 01h 0000000000000000 No Image Information

CALL ImageBase ImageName+Offset

STACK 00h 04h 08h 0Ch 10h 14h 18h 1Ch RSP+00h 9EFC7818 9A08AB98 9EFBF56D 9EFC7818 00000000 9ED79018 00000000 4CF5B200 RSP+20h 9EFC1B9B 4CF5B200 733AA782 7B231710 982470C0 365CA000 00000040 7B109960 RSP+40h 733A904F 3932D000 365CA000 7331C340 733A787F 734C8EE5 7340ADE0 734C8F55 RSP+60h 7331E4A8 734C84A0 73450911 7331C048 7331E4A0 7B231800 7331C320 9EFBAC48 RSP+80h 7331E520 7B231840 00000001 7331E420 7B231870 734500AB 7331C048 7331E500 RSP+A0h 9EFBAC48 73450A83 7331C288 7331E580 734500AB 7331C288 7331E640 00000000 RSP+C0h 73450EC5 7331E5E0 7344CF6E 73324300 7331E640 7331E5E0 73438071 73325580 RSP+E0h 7331E640 73324300 7331EA52 7331EA40 00000000 734382B2 73325580 00000000

Answer 1

you are not booting a Shim file (shimx64.efi)

RHEL shim file is called BOOTX64.EFI and is about 1.2MB

RHEL grub file is called grubx64.efi and is about 1.8MB

From your Log considering the size of the NBP transfer (NBP filesize is 1877432 Bytes) I think you are booting grubx64.efi instead of BOOTX64.EFI

EDIT 1:

If after booting the correct BOOTX64.EFI you are still getting the same exception try booting the 64 bit version of bootmgfw.efi (Microsoft UEFI Boot Manager)

If it boots correctly (even when will surely fail trying to load the BCD) that means your firmware does not implement a UEFI conformant environment and fails when loading a shim

If it also fails booting you are probably not really booting in UEFI mode or your firmware is definitely buggy.

EDIT 2:

you could also run a memory test and see if your RAM is OK...