BMC / rubyipmi-0.10.0 efiboot option

Support
1

Problem:

When a server that have EFI and Bios Legacy support enabled, foreman-proxy constantly set the pxe boot to legacy boot.

In our infra, all servers are using UEFI but also have legacy boot enabled.

Even if the server is capable of using pxe and boot in legacy mode, when the host is being provisioned, OS installer think it is a legacy bios and does not create nor install EFI capabilities and the host is not able to boot after it has been provisioned.

Some of you will tell me to limit our system to only use EFI, but it is currently not an option.

Expected outcome:

boot host with efiboot option

Foreman and Proxy versions:

  • foreman-proxy 2.4.0-rc2
  • rubygem-rubyipmi-0.10.0-6.el8
  • ipmitool-1.8.18-17.el8.x86_64

Distribution and version:

CentOS Linux release 8.3.2011

Other relevant data:

The servers are Lenovo ThinkSystem SD530

Bios settings:

System Settings → Legacy BIOS → Legacy boot = enabled
System Settings → Network boot settings → {NIC_DEVICE}

  • UEFI PXE mode = Enabled
  • Legacy PXE mode = Enabled

System boot mode = UFEI Mode

Workaround

rubyipmi is quite old according to the gitlab repo and it hasn’t been updated in the past 4 years.

So, as a dirty workaround, I edited /usr/share/gems/gems/rubyipmi-0.10.0/lib/rubyipmi/ipmitool/commands/chassisconfig.rb and changed the following:

    # Set the boot device
    def bootdevice(device, persistent=false)
      if persistent
        @options["cmdargs"] = "chassis bootdev #{device} options=efiboot"
      else
        #@options["cmdargs"] = "chassis bootparam set bootflag force_#{device}"
        @options["cmdargs"] = "chassis bootdev #{device} options=efiboot"
      end
      value = runcmd
      @options.delete_notify("cmdargs")
      return value
    end

This may not work for systems that still using legacy PXE, or for people that have mixed environment

Feature request

It would be great to have an option in foreman so we can set this option directly in the GUI or by using a BMC host parameter

2

Hello,

I think this is not a Foreman discussion but an Anaconda discussion. This installer cannot do EFI installation on BIOS system and vice versa, when I asked for such feature the BZ was closed by the Anaconda team. If you want EFI partitioning your only option is to boot in EFI mode, full stop.

It’s not very active, indeed. Two weeks ago @evgeni 's patch was merged after like two years hanging there :slight_smile: Commits · logicminds/rubyipmi · GitHub

However if there is something missing in this library, you should really file a patch there. I guess in this case this is also the wrong place. I’d be more than happy to accept a patch into Foreman supporting a new option or whatever is needed in this case.

Honestly I am not entierly sure what exactly is missing in there, are you saying that you would like Foreman to send persistent flag set to false? There could be a setting for that, this is the first time I hear about this.