[Dnsmasq-discuss] PXE question

[sam at sltosis.org]

Hello,

I recently bought a laptop with UEFI, this has been somewhat painfull until
now, so I may be doing something wrong!


Anyway, there seems to have two PXE modes on this laptop, the legacy one and
the one with UEFI.  In some of my desperates attempts to boot the thing
via(on?) UEFI, I've setup dnsmasq to act as a PXE server(followed the
documentation on edubuntu.org[1]):


parts of dnsmasq.conf:
dhcp-range=eth1,10.10.10.10,10.10.10.15,255.255.255.0
enable-tftp=eth1
tftp-secure
tftp-root=/var/tftp
dhcp-vendorclass=set:dopxe,PXEClient
dhcp-boot=tag:dopxe,bootx64-ubumini.efi

(by the way: dnsmaqsq is running as the user 'dnsmasq', but it will serve files
it doesn't own despite the 'tftp-secure' directive - dnsmasq 2.62 on a debian
testing box-)

Now what's weird is that when I boot through the "UEFI: IPv4 Realtek Ethernet
Controller" menu item, I can see this in dnsmasq log:


Jan 22 17:51:57 dellwork dnsmasq-dhcp[30855]: 1296261650 available DHCP range: 10.10.10.10 -- 10.10.10.15
Jan 22 17:51:57 dellwork dnsmasq-dhcp[30855]: 1296261650 vendor class: PXEClient:Arch:00007:UNDI:003016
Jan 22 17:51:57 dellwork dnsmasq-dhcp[30855]: 1296261650 DHCPDISCOVER(eth1) 50:46:5d:4a:a3:70
Jan 22 17:51:57 dellwork dnsmasq-dhcp[30855]: 1296261650 tags: dopxe, eth1
Jan 22 17:51:57 dellwork dnsmasq-dhcp[30855]: 1296261650 DHCPOFFER(eth1) 10.10.10.12 50:46:5d:4a:a3:70
...
Jan 22 17:52:01 dellwork dnsmasq-dhcp[30855]: 1296261650 sent size:  4 option:  3 router  10.10.10.1
Jan 22 17:52:01 dellwork dnsmasq-dhcp[30855]: 1296261650 sent size:  4 option:  6 dns-server  10.10.10.1
Jan 22 17:52:01 dellwork dnsmasq-tftp[30855]: error 8 User aborted the transfer received from 10.10.10.12
Jan 22 17:52:01 dellwork dnsmasq-tftp[30855]: failed sending /var/tftp/bootx64-ubumini.efi to 10.10.10.12
Jan 22 17:52:09 dellwork dnsmasq-tftp[30855]: sent /var/tftp/bootx64-ubumini.efi to 10.10.10.12
Jan 22 17:53:12 dellwork dnsmasq-tftp[30855]: sent /var/tftp/bootx64-ubumini.efi to 10.10.10.12


Notice how the transfer is apparently aborted but continues anyway. this leads
me to a new grub error (it's not the grub installed on the local disk) but it
probably also means the transfer went correctly.

I've tested this with atftpd instead of dnsmasq for the tftp server and atftpd
did not yield anything about the transfer being aborted. Although atftpd may
just be less verbose about it, I end up with the same grub error
message(meaning I'm still struggling to get this UEFI thing  working but I
don't think that's related)


Here is the output from atftpd just in case:



$ sudo atftpd -v --logfile - --no-fork --user dnsmasq --daemon --bind-address 10.10.10.1 /var/tftp/
atftpd[5033.-1507137792]: Advanced Trivial FTP server started (0.7)
atftpd[5033.-1507137792]:   running in daemon mode on port 69
atftpd[5033.-1507137792]:   bound to IP address 10.10.10.1 only
atftpd[5033.-1507137792]:   logging level: 6
atftpd[5033.-1507137792]:   directory: /var/tftp//
atftpd[5033.-1507137792]:   user: dnsmasq.nogroup
atftpd[5033.-1507137792]:   log file: -
atftpd[5033.-1507137792]:   not forcing to listen on local interfaces.
atftpd[5033.-1507137792]:   server timeout: Not used
atftpd[5033.-1507137792]:   tftp retry timeout: 5
atftpd[5033.-1507137792]:   maximum number of thread: 100
atftpd[5033.-1507137792]:   option timeout:   enabled
atftpd[5033.-1507137792]:   option tzise:     enabled
atftpd[5033.-1507137792]:   option blksize:   enabled
atftpd[5033.-1507137792]:   option multicast: enabled
atftpd[5033.-1507137792]:      address range: 239.255.0.0-255
atftpd[5033.-1507137792]:      port range:    1758
atftpd[5033.-1528297728]: socket may listen on any address, including broadcast
atftpd[5033.-1528297728]: Serving bootx64-ubumini.efi to 10.10.10.12:1957
atftpd[5033.-1528297728]: tsize option -> 36801024
atftpd[5033.-1528297728]: blksize option -> 1468
atftpd[5033.-1528297728]: Server thread exiting
atftpd[5033.-1528297728]: socket may listen on any address, including broadcast
atftpd[5033.-1528297728]: Serving bootx64-ubumini.efi to 10.10.10.12:1958
atftpd[5033.-1528297728]: blksize option -> 1468
atftpd[5033.-1528297728]: Server thread exiting



Obvious question then: why dnsmasq thinks the transfer was aborted?


If you need more info, just tell me and Ill do my best!


Thanks!



[1] -> https://wiki.edubuntu.org/UEFI/PXE-netboot-install


PS: laptop is an asus x401a, anyone got it working with linux&UEFI ready to
share some information with me offlist? :)