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I am attempting to pxe chain boot with http download. The problem I am having is the file retrieval always just stops on one of the random files below, at some random % complete. Usually it is the boot.wim, but I assume this is only because it is the largest. It has stopped on a simple font file as well though.

What could be causing this sporadic download behavior?

If I attempt a windows download off the samba share where those files are, the download is 1-2 secs. If I wget it from a nix host its about the same. Only when pxe is attempting to retrieve them does it seem to have an issue. I am fairly new to all this so hopefully I am giving good info. Samba server is running via apache.

I have tried numerous builds of kernel and boot.wim. Frankly, Im at a loss.

<%#
kind: PXELinux
name: Windows PXELinux
oses:
- Windows Server 2012
- Windows Server 2012 R2
- Windows Server 2016
%>

DEFAULT linux
LABEL linux
KERNEL ipxe.lkrn
APPEND dhcp && chain <%= foreman_url('iPXE') %>
IPAPPEND 2

the chain then goes to:

#!ipxe


kernel http://puppet.lab.beer.town:717/sources/Microsoft/Windows/6.3/../boot/wimboot gui
initrd http://puppet.lab.beer.town:717/sources/Microsoft/Windows/6.3/../boot/boot/fonts/segmono_boot.ttf  segmono_boot.ttf
initrd http://puppet.lab.beer.town:717/sources/Microsoft/Windows/6.3/../boot/boot/fonts/segoe_slboot.ttf  segoe_slboot.ttf
initrd http://puppet.lab.beer.town:717/sources/Microsoft/Windows/6.3/../boot/boot/fonts/segoen_slboot.ttf segoen_slboot.ttf
initrd http://puppet.lab.beer.town:717/sources/Microsoft/Windows/6.3/../boot/boot/fonts/wgl4_boot.ttf     wgl4_boot.ttf
initrd http://puppet.lab.beer.town:717/sources/Microsoft/Windows/6.3/../boot/bootmgr              bootmgr.exe
initrd http://puppet.lab.beer.town:717/sources/Microsoft/Windows/6.3/../boot/boot/BCD         BCD
initrd http://puppet.lab.beer.town:717/sources/Microsoft/Windows/6.3/../boot/boot/boot.sdi    boot.sdi
initrd http://puppet.lab.beer.town:717/sources/Microsoft/Windows/6.3/../boot/boot.wim boot.wim

imgstat
boot

Edit 1:
here is a screenshot showing the connection just freezing. all the established @ 0, are the files that worked fine. the one stuck here is the boot wim (this time) connections

Paul Roub
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tek0011
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  • since quite a while back you no longer need to load bootmgr as initrd. wimboot will extract it automatically from your .wim file, and the fonts is only needed if you get some kind of error. As I understand it from IRC this is a vmware guest emulating e1000 sounds like a network issue, will try to figure this out on IRC while documenting here for others to find ;) – NiKiZe Jul 26 '16 at 20:40

1 Answers1

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Issue here was the ipxe version on the server was like 3 years old. We git cloned it, and remade(make) the ipxe.lkrn. Files download just fine now.

tek0011
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    recommendation for anyone else is to always git clone https://git.ipxe.org/ipxe.git master should always be production worthy. If you don't want to build yourself you can find prebuilt files for most formats on http://boot.ipxe.org – NiKiZe Jul 26 '16 at 21:58