Need bzimage feature in iPXE build for network adapter boot ROM

[MyDogHasFleas]

see ticket #13628 for background. That ticket can be closed.

I cannot boot Linux (specifically CoreOS Linux) over PXE because the bzimage feature is needed to support the CoreOS cpio.gz file.

Please enable the bzimage feature in your iPXE build. Thanks.

here's my iPXE script if it matters:

kernel /assets/coreos/current/coreos_production_pxe.vmlinuz coreos.autologin coreos.config.url=http://10.3.0.154:8080/ignition?uuid=dontmatch coreos.first_boot=1
initrd /assets/coreos/current/coreos_production_pxe_image.cpio.gz
boot

[Frank Mehnert]

I'm aware of your request in #13628. However, the space in the ROM area is quite limited so I hesitate to enable support for custom boot formats in iPXE.

[MyDogHasFleas]

FYI, I solved this for myself with a custom build of the IPXE boot ROM, which only supports virtio-net NICs.

See: ​https://github.com/SpencerBrown/virtualbox-ipxe

You may close this issue.

[ElCoyote]

Still not working.. Can we get ipxe support for virtio network adapters?

[Attila123]

I solved this issue with the ipxe.iso available from ​https://boot.ipxe.org/ipxe.iso (see ​https://ipxe.org/download).

Just download it and set it for your virtual Optical drive. Then in the "System" tab of your VM settings make sure to set the Boot Order so that "Optical" is below "Hard Disk" - to prevent from booting from this iso once your OS is already installed.

I also tried to compile this iso for myself with a recent versions of isolinux, which somehow did not work correctly (freezes half-way when loading the CoreOS kernel, or the next file). But the one linked above does work, so for the record, it is based on isolinux 3.83 and the iPXE version in it is iPXE 1.0.0+ (8c17). Hope it will help someone.