pxe boot for ipv6 only machine not working on vmware

[S, Shilpashree 1. (Nokia - IN/Bangalore)]

Hi Benedikt,

Thanks for your support in identifying that Intel Specs support only IPV4.

Moving forward we tried option of UEFI to support PXE boot over IPV6 as suggested by you in first place.

Here are the progress, but still stuck up after downloading file shim.efi :(:(:(

We created the dhcpd6.conf as per the sample file and the dhcp6 client is able to communicate with the server.  

The goal here for us is to perform the UEFI PXE boot using IPv6. For this we've done the following:

1. Extracted the shim and the grub2-efi packages(both shim and grub2 efi images are extracted) and created the grub.cfg and the kickstart files as mentioned in section 21.1.2 in the following link:

https://access.redhat.com/documentation/en-US/Red_Hat_Enterprise_Linux/7/html/Installation_Guide/chap-installation-server-setup.html#sect-network-boot-setup-uefi

2. Modified the tftp configuration file to support IPV6. Restarted the xinetd,tftp,dhcpd6 and the nfs services. 

3. Rebooted the target machine in the UEFI mode.

At the same time we have taken a tcpdump on the IP6 protocol on the server and found that the shim.efi image is transferred sucessfully to the client. After this the netboot is not proceeding. It stops at "Fetching Netboot Image" and enters the grub menu. 

I have attached the logs:
1. Wireshark trace capturing the dhcpd6 handshake and the transfer of the shim.efi file
2. Print screen of the client
3. dhcpd6.conf and the grub.cfg file.

Questions:

1. From the sources i gathered on the internet I found that shim is used for secureboot, Is it a must that the shim.efi file should be present or grubx64.efi file will suffice for uefi pxe boot.
2. We are not able to figure out as to why it is not proceeding after "Fetching Netboot Image".


Please could you assist in this regard.

Thanks,
Shilpa 


-----Original Message-----
From: Benedikt Stockebrand [mailto:bs at stepladder-it.com] 
Sent: Friday, July 01, 2016 5:12 PM
To: S, Shilpashree 1. (Nokia - IN/Bangalore) <shilpashree.1.s at nokia.com>
Cc: ipv6-ops at lists.cluenet.de
Subject: Re: pxe boot for ipv6 only machine not working on vmware

Hi Shilpa,

"S, Shilpashree 1. (Nokia - IN/Bangalore)" <shilpashree.1.s at nokia.com>
writes:

> We have a case to install machine with ipv6 only using pxe boot.

bad news for you: PXE as per the Intel specs is IPv4 only.  Intel wants people to move from BIOS (and as such, PXE as a BIOS extension) to UEFI and has shown absolutely no intention to add IPv4 support to PXE.

Your options are

  - to use UEFI with a suitable module to boot via IPv6, which pretty
    much defeats your use case for PXE to install the machine,

  - to use IPv4 to set up the machine, possibly in an installation-only
    VLAN, or,

  - to forget about network based install and use IPMI or similar to
    install from an ISO image used through a "virtual DVD drive".

None of these options are particularly enticing, and yes, I've been rather frustrated by that myself, and more than once.


Cheers,

    Benedikt

-- 
Benedikt Stockebrand,                   Stepladder IT Training+Consulting
Dipl.-Inform.                           http://www.stepladder-it.com/

          Business Grade IPv6 --- Consulting, Training, Projects

BIVBlog---Benedikt's IT Video Blog: http://www.stepladder-it.com/bivblog/
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