Enable UEFI Red Hat support on Cobbler (2.6.7) - HOW?

[Ž D]

Hallo. I was successful in UEFI boot and install, here are details:

1) Cobbler server : 2.6.9
   source: ?, ?
   build time: Fri Jun 12 07:42:24 2015

Cobbler is installed on Oracle Linux 6.6

2) I am installing Oracle Linux R6-U6-x86_64 on the Oracle Server x3-2

3) DHCP service is provided by another box, the config is:

host my-hostname.domain.com {
       hardware ethernet 00:10:e0:aa:aa:aa;
       fixed-address 10.xx.xx.xx;
       next-server 10.yy.yy.yy; # my cobbler server
       filename "/grub/BOOTX64.efi";
       }

4) How to find proper BOOTX64.efi file, read the doc: 
http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E37670_01/E41137/E41137.pdf

See the paragraph 1.4.7 (starts on page 9), the page 10 talks about 
UEFI-based PXE client.
This is the key: UEFI-based PXE clients can use the BOOTX64.efi boot 
loader, which is available as EFI/BOOT/BOOTX64.efi from the Oracle Linux 
6 Update 6 Media Pack DVD image.

So I placed BOOTX64.efi in <my_cobbler_server>:/var/lib/tftpboot/grub/


5) I also have the file splash.xpm.gz in 
<my_cobbler_server>:/var/lib/tftpboot/grub/

6) The file /var/lib/tftpboot/grub/00:10:e0:aa:aa:aa looks like

timeout=10
splashimage=(nd)/splash.xpm.gz
title OL-R6-U6-x86_64-UEFI
     root (nd)
     kernel /images/OL-R6-U6-x86_64/vmlinuz  ksdevice=bootif lang= text 
ks=http://my_cobbler_server/cblr/svc/op/ks/system/host_name
     initrd /images/OL-R6-U6-x86_64/initrd.img

7) The kickstart file is

# ks for OL 6.6 UEFI
install
text
url --url=http://10.yy.yy.yy/cobbler/links/OL-R6-U6-x86_64
lang en_US.UTF-8
keyboard us
rootpw --iscrypted $1$zw2wh8P1$zZMsVBx4.HbZNxM8p1uPX1
firewall --disabled
authconfig --enableshadow --enablemd5
selinux --disabled
timezone --utc America/Los_Angeles
reboot
bootloader --location=partition
clearpart --all --initlabel
part /boot/efi --fstype=vfat --size=200 --asprimary --ondisk=sda
part /boot --fstype=ext4 --size=500 --label=/boot --asprimary --ondisk=sda
part / --fstype=ext4 --size=8192 --grow --maxsize=51200 --label=/ 
--ondisk=sda
part /var --fstype=ext4 --size=4096 --label=/var --ondisk=sda
part /u01 --fstype=ext3 --size=4096 --label=/u01 --ondisk=sda
part swap --size=16384 --label=swap --ondisk=sda
%packages
@base
@core
device-mapper-multipath
kexec-tools
net-tools
pciutils
sysfsutils
system-config-kickstart
wget
lsscsi
nfs-utils

8) Works for me. Let me know if you need any other detail?

-- 
Thanks,
Zarko

[André Gemünd]

I'm curious, did you have any problems with the defaults? It should actually just
work. 

The DHCP template in /etc/cobbler has cases for the different bootloaders, e.g. 

     class "pxeclients" {
          match if substring (option vendor-class-identifier, 0, 9) =
"PXEClient";
          if option pxe-system-type = 00:02 {
                  filename "ia64/elilo.efi";
          } else if option pxe-system-type = 00:06 {
                  filename "grub/grub-x86.efi";
          } else if option pxe-system-type = 00:07 {
                  filename "grub/grub-x86_64.efi";
          } else {
                  filename "pxelinux.0";
          }
     }

If you call cobbler get-loaders, they are automatically downloaded to the correct
location.
The default kickstart with autopart should work as well.

Greetings
Andre

----- Am 15. Sep 2015 um 0:58 schrieb Zarko Dudic zarko.dudic(a)oracle.com:

>  Hallo. I was successful in UEFI boot and install, here are details:
>  
>  1) Cobbler server : 2.6.9
>    source: ?, ?
>    build time: Fri Jun 12 07:42:24 2015
>  
>  Cobbler is installed on Oracle Linux 6.6
>  
>  2) I am installing Oracle Linux R6-U6-x86_64 on the Oracle Server x3-2
>  
>  3) DHCP service is provided by another box, the config is:
>  
>  host my-hostname.domain.com {
>        hardware ethernet 00:10:e0:aa:aa:aa;
>        fixed-address 10.xx.xx.xx;
>        next-server 10.yy.yy.yy; # my cobbler server
>        filename "/grub/BOOTX64.efi";
>        }
>  
>  4) How to find proper BOOTX64.efi file, read the doc:
>  http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E37670_01/E41137/E41137.pdf
>  
>  See the paragraph 1.4.7 (starts on page 9), the page 10 talks about
>  UEFI-based PXE client.
>  This is the key: UEFI-based PXE clients can use the BOOTX64.efi boot
>  loader, which is available as EFI/BOOT/BOOTX64.efi from the Oracle Linux
>  6 Update 6 Media Pack DVD image.
>  
>  So I placed BOOTX64.efi in <my_cobbler_server>:/var/lib/tftpboot/grub/
>  
>  
>  5) I also have the file splash.xpm.gz in
>  <my_cobbler_server>:/var/lib/tftpboot/grub/
>  
>  6) The file /var/lib/tftpboot/grub/00:10:e0:aa:aa:aa looks like
>  
>  timeout=10
>  splashimage=(nd)/splash.xpm.gz
>  title OL-R6-U6-x86_64-UEFI
>      root (nd)
>      kernel /images/OL-R6-U6-x86_64/vmlinuz  ksdevice=bootif lang= text
>  ks=http://my_cobbler_server/cblr/svc/op/ks/system/host_name
>      initrd /images/OL-R6-U6-x86_64/initrd.img
>  
>  7) The kickstart file is
>  
>  # ks for OL 6.6 UEFI
>  install
>  text
>  url --url=http://10.yy.yy.yy/cobbler/links/OL-R6-U6-x86_64
>  lang en_US.UTF-8
>  keyboard us
>  rootpw --iscrypted $1$zw2wh8P1$zZMsVBx4.HbZNxM8p1uPX1
>  firewall --disabled
>  authconfig --enableshadow --enablemd5
>  selinux --disabled
>  timezone --utc America/Los_Angeles
>  reboot
>  bootloader --location=partition
>  clearpart --all --initlabel
>  part /boot/efi --fstype=vfat --size=200 --asprimary --ondisk=sda
>  part /boot --fstype=ext4 --size=500 --label=/boot --asprimary --ondisk=sda
>  part / --fstype=ext4 --size=8192 --grow --maxsize=51200 --label=/
>  --ondisk=sda
>  part /var --fstype=ext4 --size=4096 --label=/var --ondisk=sda
>  part /u01 --fstype=ext3 --size=4096 --label=/u01 --ondisk=sda
>  part swap --size=16384 --label=swap --ondisk=sda
>  %packages
>  @base
>  @core
>  device-mapper-multipath
>  kexec-tools
>  net-tools
>  pciutils
>  sysfsutils
>  system-config-kickstart
>  wget
>  lsscsi
>  nfs-utils
>  
>  8) Works for me. Let me know if you need any other detail?
>  
>  --
>  Thanks,
>  Zarko
>  
>  _______________________________________________
>  cobbler mailing list
>  cobbler(a)lists.fedorahosted.org
>  https://lists.fedorahosted.org/mailman/listinfo/cobbler 
-- 
André Gemünd
Fraunhofer-Institute for Algorithms and Scientific Computing
andre.gemuend(a)scai.fraunhofer.de
Tel: [phone]
/C=DE/O=Fraunhofer/OU=SCAI/OU=People/CN=Andre Gemuend

[Ž D]

Yes, I had problems with the defaults, the process was sitting on:

Trying to allocate 1011 pages for VMLINUZ
[Linux-EFI, setup=0x107c, size=0x3f28d0]
[Initrd, addr=0x7cbec000, size=0x224b4411]



On 9/15/2015 2:03 AM, André Gemünd wrote:
>  I'm curious, did you have any problems with the defaults? It
> should actually just work.
>
>  The DHCP template in /etc/cobbler has cases for the different bootloaders, e.g.
>
>        class "pxeclients" {
>             match if substring (option vendor-class-identifier, 0, 9) =
> "PXEClient";
>             if option pxe-system-type = 00:02 {
>                     filename "ia64/elilo.efi";
>             } else if option pxe-system-type = 00:06 {
>                     filename "grub/grub-x86.efi";
>             } else if option pxe-system-type = 00:07 {
>                     filename "grub/grub-x86_64.efi";
>             } else {
>                     filename "pxelinux.0";
>             }
>        }
>
>  If you call cobbler get-loaders, they are automatically downloaded to the correct
> location.
>  The default kickstart with autopart should work as well.
>
>  Greetings
>  Andre
>
>  ----- Am 15. Sep 2015 um 0:58 schrieb Zarko Dudic zarko.dudic(a)oracle.com:
>
> > Hallo. I was successful in UEFI boot and install, here are details:
> >
> > 1) Cobbler server : 2.6.9
> >    source: ?, ?
> >    build time: Fri Jun 12 07:42:24 2015
> >
> > Cobbler is installed on Oracle Linux 6.6
> >
> > 2) I am installing Oracle Linux R6-U6-x86_64 on the Oracle Server x3-2
> >
> > 3) DHCP service is provided by another box, the config is:
> >
> > host my-hostname.domain.com {
> >        hardware ethernet 00:10:e0:aa:aa:aa;
> >        fixed-address 10.xx.xx.xx;
> >        next-server 10.yy.yy.yy; # my cobbler server
> >        filename "/grub/BOOTX64.efi";
> >        }
> >
> > 4) How to find proper BOOTX64.efi file, read the doc:
> > http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E37670_01/E41137/E41137.pdf
> >
> > See the paragraph 1.4.7 (starts on page 9), the page 10 talks about
> > UEFI-based PXE client.
> > This is the key: UEFI-based PXE clients can use the BOOTX64.efi boot
> > loader, which is available as EFI/BOOT/BOOTX64.efi from the Oracle Linux
> > 6 Update 6 Media Pack DVD image.
> >
> > So I placed BOOTX64.efi in <my_cobbler_server>:/var/lib/tftpboot/grub/
> >
> >
> > 5) I also have the file splash.xpm.gz in
> > <my_cobbler_server>:/var/lib/tftpboot/grub/
> >
> > 6) The file /var/lib/tftpboot/grub/00:10:e0:aa:aa:aa looks like
> >
> > timeout=10
> > splashimage=(nd)/splash.xpm.gz
> > title OL-R6-U6-x86_64-UEFI
> >      root (nd)
> >      kernel /images/OL-R6-U6-x86_64/vmlinuz  ksdevice=bootif lang= text
> > ks=http://my_cobbler_server/cblr/svc/op/ks/system/host_name
> >      initrd /images/OL-R6-U6-x86_64/initrd.img
> >
> > 7) The kickstart file is
> >
> > # ks for OL 6.6 UEFI
> > install
> > text
> > url --url=http://10.yy.yy.yy/cobbler/links/OL-R6-U6-x86_64
> > lang en_US.UTF-8
> > keyboard us
> > rootpw --iscrypted $1$zw2wh8P1$zZMsVBx4.HbZNxM8p1uPX1
> > firewall --disabled
> > authconfig --enableshadow --enablemd5
> > selinux --disabled
> > timezone --utc America/Los_Angeles
> > reboot
> > bootloader --location=partition
> > clearpart --all --initlabel
> > part /boot/efi --fstype=vfat --size=200 --asprimary --ondisk=sda
> > part /boot --fstype=ext4 --size=500 --label=/boot --asprimary --ondisk=sda
> > part / --fstype=ext4 --size=8192 --grow --maxsize=51200 --label=/
> > --ondisk=sda
> > part /var --fstype=ext4 --size=4096 --label=/var --ondisk=sda
> > part /u01 --fstype=ext3 --size=4096 --label=/u01 --ondisk=sda
> > part swap --size=16384 --label=swap --ondisk=sda
> > %packages
> > @base
> > @core
> > device-mapper-multipath
> > kexec-tools
> > net-tools
> > pciutils
> > sysfsutils
> > system-config-kickstart
> > wget
> > lsscsi
> > nfs-utils
> >
> > 8) Works for me. Let me know if you need any other detail?
> >
> > --
> > Thanks,
> > Zarko
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > cobbler mailing list
> > cobbler(a)lists.fedorahosted.org
> > https://lists.fedorahosted.org/mailman/listinfo/cobbler 
-- 
Thanks,
Zarko

I recently updated bootloaders using cobbler get-loaders hoping an update would work:
-rw-r--r-- 2 root root 243679 May 15 12:41 grub-x86_64.efi

# md5sum grub-x86_64.efi
3484decda055ec4660637ca12500faf7  grub-x86_64.efi

But the VMLINUZ page allocation message continues to appear.  After 5-10 minutes of this
message appearing on the screen, the install continues.  But the delay is not desirable.