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#1 2013-03-31 18:00:05

george.sterpu
Member
Registered: 2013-03-31
Posts: 8

ipxe rom burning

Hi

I want to flash the NIC's boot rom in order to install arch over the network.

I followed the tutorial over here
http://ipxe.org/howto/romburning
and I encountered serveral issues.

Firstly, using the card's info
03:00.0 0200: 10ec:8168 (rev 01)

i succesfully built the rom using
# make bin/10ec8168.rom

How do I include the arch.ipxe script in the rom ?

Also, I cannot find any info on how to burn the image on the 8168 Realtek card.
Is there any tool I can use ?

Thanks

Last edited by george.sterpu (2013-03-31 21:31:33)

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#2 2013-03-31 21:30:29

george.sterpu
Member
Registered: 2013-03-31
Posts: 8

Re: ipxe rom burning

I tried two different tools, Realtek Flash Tool RTFLASH.exe, and flashrom (community/flashrom 0.9.6.1-1); neither of them are compatible with my 8168 NIC.

Currently the rom contains the Intel UNDI PXE 2.1.

Any suggestions?

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#3 2013-04-01 12:47:30

nomorewindows
Member
Registered: 2010-04-03
Posts: 3,362

Re: ipxe rom burning

You don't want to burn the arch.ipxe script into the rom, because it will boot that way everytime.  Your network card already has UNDI, so there's not really going to be any reason to burn it.  The NIC will probably only burn RealTek provided images, especially if it's an onboard.  Somehow you need to have a PXE server on the network that can serve you the arch.ipxe script.  The other option is to burn a CD with ipxe on it, kinda silly though.


I may have to CONSOLE you about your usage of ridiculously easy graphical interfaces...
Look ma, no mouse.

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#4 2013-04-01 16:11:35

george.sterpu
Member
Registered: 2013-03-31
Posts: 8

Re: ipxe rom burning

I want to be able to recover my data (if it's the case) just with an internet connection, so the tftp server method doesn't stand.
Embedding the arch script was only a matter of taste, as I wasn't going to try anything else anyway (and I could always re-flash).

I just want to burn the ipxe rom, but I cannot find any tool for 8168 Realtek card.
BTW, it's a laptop nic, lspci returns the following
03:00.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8111/8168 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet controller (rev 01)
therefore it shouldn't be a LOM (lan on motherboard).

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#5 2013-04-02 17:42:01

nomorewindows
Member
Registered: 2010-04-03
Posts: 3,362

Re: ipxe rom burning

What BIOS does it have?


I may have to CONSOLE you about your usage of ridiculously easy graphical interfaces...
Look ma, no mouse.

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#6 2013-04-02 18:22:25

george.sterpu
Member
Registered: 2013-03-31
Posts: 8

Re: ipxe rom burning

BIOS Information
        Vendor: American Megatrends Inc.
        Version: 220   
        Release Date: 06/23/2010
        Address: 0xF0000
        Runtime Size: 64 kB
        ROM Size: 1024 kB
        Characteristics:
                ISA is supported
                PCI is supported
                PNP is supported
                BIOS is upgradeable
                BIOS shadowing is allowed
                ESCD support is available
                Boot from CD is supported
                Selectable boot is supported
                EDD is supported
5.25"/1.2 MB floppy services are supported (int 13h)
                3.5"/720 kB floppy services are supported (int 13h)
                3.5"/2.88 MB floppy services are supported (int 13h)
                Print screen service is supported (int 5h)
                8042 keyboard services are supported (int 9h)
                Printer services are supported (int 17h)
                CGA/mono video services are supported (int 10h)
                ACPI is supported
                USB legacy is supported
                Smart battery is supported
                BIOS boot specification is supported
                Targeted content distribution is supported
BIOS Revision: 10.0
        Firmware Revision: 152.152

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#7 2013-04-02 19:21:14

nomorewindows
Member
Registered: 2010-04-03
Posts: 3,362

Re: ipxe rom burning

If you had an Award, you might be able to hack it.  I'm not sure about AMI BIOS.  What OS is on the disk?  Obviously not Linux.  Do you have a way to just burn a CD and boot from it?  A knoppix CD for example.  Just how are you running the burning utility, you have to boot it some how?


I may have to CONSOLE you about your usage of ridiculously easy graphical interfaces...
Look ma, no mouse.

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#8 2013-04-02 19:24:23

george.sterpu
Member
Registered: 2013-03-31
Posts: 8

Re: ipxe rom burning

I'm currently running an arch-based distro called Manjaro and WinXP in dual boot.

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#9 2013-04-02 19:27:57

nomorewindows
Member
Registered: 2010-04-03
Posts: 3,362

Re: ipxe rom burning

So why can't you boot into it or did I miss the problem was?


I may have to CONSOLE you about your usage of ridiculously easy graphical interfaces...
Look ma, no mouse.

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#10 2013-04-02 19:38:01

george.sterpu
Member
Registered: 2013-03-31
Posts: 8

Re: ipxe rom burning

There isn't any problem with my laptop besides of not being able to boot over the internet.

Last edited by george.sterpu (2020-07-17 22:49:36)

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#11 2013-04-02 20:08:37

nomorewindows
Member
Registered: 2010-04-03
Posts: 3,362

Re: ipxe rom burning

You can boot it into Windows and Manjaro just fine then?
Manjaro is arch-based which means it uses pacman.  So you can move some disk space around or whatever you have to do, and change your repos to use ArchLinux repos, and can actually install Arch using Manjaro. 
If you really must go through the druggery in pxe booting, just download ipxe.iso and make sure that you have memdisk available from syslinux, and then use your bootloader to access this.  I think this could also be done with the arch-ipxe, anyhow, it just contains the commands to pass onto ipxe to boot over the internet. 
root (hdx,x)
kernel /wherever/memdisk initrd=/wherever/ipxe.iso iso raw


I may have to CONSOLE you about your usage of ridiculously easy graphical interfaces...
Look ma, no mouse.

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#12 2013-04-02 20:18:31

george.sterpu
Member
Registered: 2013-03-31
Posts: 8

Re: ipxe rom burning

-

Last edited by george.sterpu (2020-07-17 22:50:25)

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#13 2013-04-02 22:36:59

nomorewindows
Member
Registered: 2010-04-03
Posts: 3,362

Re: ipxe rom burning

flashrom -L shows a device entry for nicrealtek and it does not include 8168.  So it appears that method is out.
If you don't have another machinery around in case flashing fails, it may not be a good idea.
It may be that if the motherboard manufacturer or the BIOS doesn't have a way of flashing this safely, you may be out of luck on this one.


I may have to CONSOLE you about your usage of ridiculously easy graphical interfaces...
Look ma, no mouse.

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