[Arm-dev] TFTP issue with PXE loaded grubaa64.efi

[Jim Perrin]

On 07/12/2016 04:38 AM, Sakar Arora wrote:
> Hi Jim,
> 
>  
> 
> While testing CentOS 7 installation on LS2080a RDB, *only on one of
> setups*, we found this strange issue, where grub wasn’t able to TFTP the
> boot images from TFTP server. We use grubaa64.efi provided on CentOS
> website <http://mirror.centos.org/altarch/7/os/aarch64/EFI/BOOT/>.
> 

This is a bit of a known issue. It was reported a few months ago, but it
has taken time for an update. While there is no official fix yet, we're
working with pjones from rh. I'm hoping that we'll have an experimental
update for testing in the next day or two.

>  
> 
> From the tftp server logs we found that the tftp transaction would
> always stop with a ‘timeout’ error. A quick search got me this bug
> <https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/grub2/+bug/1508893> logged in
> Ubuntu bug tracking system. There was a mention of a patch, which is
> supposed to fix this issue.
> 
>  

grub2 is already very heavily patched.


> 
> So, I went ahead and created a grub image with the latest upstream grub
> source code (git.savannah.gnu.org/grub.git).
> 
>  
> 
> Using this grub image, fixed the issue with TFTP transfers.
> 
>  
> 
> But, there’s different kind of issue with this new grub image. It
> doesn’t seem to be fully compatible with UEFI PXE boot protocol. When
> loading grub via UEFI PXE boot, the tftp server address does not get set
> in the grub environment variables, as was the case with grubaa64.efi
> from CentOS that we use.
> 


Yup. There are quite a few patches in the grub2 we use/ship.


>  
> 
> Can you share you views on this?

Give me a day or so to rebuild the test package pjones has. It will be
in the experimental repository as it's not a 'released' fix.

Once it's built and available, I'll post directions to the list for how
to test it.

-- 
Jim Perrin
The CentOS Project | http://www.centos.org
twitter: @BitIntegrity | GPG Key: FA09AD77