Plop Forum

General Category => Boot Managers => Topic started by: edison on May 05, 2011, 05:18:39 AM

Title: Boot USB from plpbt via PXE with IPMI serial-over-lan (SOL) console redirection
Post by: edison on May 05, 2011, 05:18:39 AM
I'm having difficulty booting a FreeNAS USB drive with BIOS console redirection and IPMI Serial-over-LAN enabled.

Environment:

    Intel SE7501BR2
    IPMI SOL
    PXE boot via pxelinux
    USB boot via plpbt.bin

Since the SE7501BR2 won't reliably boot from USB, I had to use the Plop boot manager 5.0.11-2 (plpbt). And as booting Plop from a floppy would be unreliable, slow and anachronistic, I set it to boot from PXE with the following pxelinux.cfg/default:

    default plpbtusb
    label plpbtusb
    linux plpbtusb.bin

plpbtusb.bin is a standard plpbt.bin configured with:

    Video mode = 80x50
    Start mode = Hidden
    Countdown = 1
    Force USB 1.1 = Off
    Use USB Device = 1
    Default boot = USB

In BIOS->Console Redirection, both "BIOS Redirection Port" & "ACPI Redirection" are set to Serial B (0x2F8/IRQ 3), and the rate is 115.2K, CTS/RTS flow control and VT100+ terminal type and the IPMI SOL speed is 115.2.

Without console/ACPI redirection enabled in the BIOS, it boots great. As soon as redirection is enabled, it hangs at "Loading plop/plpbtusb.bin...ready.".

Up until that point, the console redirection seems to work fine. I can get into and configure the BIOS and the pxelinux menus display and operate properly. Setting

    serial 1 115200 0x013

in the pxelinux config seems to make no difference whatsoever. The machine hangs at the same point on the physical console, too.

Any suggestions?

Thanks in advance!
Title: Re: Boot USB from plpbt via PXE with IPMI serial-over-lan (SOL) console redirection
Post by: Elmar on May 10, 2011, 09:06:57 AM
please try the 5.0.12 version

regards
elmar
Title: Re: Boot USB from plpbt via PXE with IPMI serial-over-lan (SOL) console redirection
Post by: edison on May 10, 2011, 16:51:03 PM
Thanks, Elmar. I'll give it a whirl and report back.

Any specific settings I should use or any updates to the config tool?

What changed in this version?