ovmf bcfg boot add does not persist

rcpa0

Active Member
Apr 21, 2016
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PVE 4.1 wth UEFI OVMF for Ubuntu 16.04 Server guest. The Ubuntu installation did not place a boot entry (or it did not persist), but I could manually run from internal shell: fs0:\efi\ubuntu\shimx64.efi. Trying 'bcfg boot add 0 shimx64.efi "ubuntu server"' is a no-op as verified by 'bcfg boot dump'. So I conclude changes to NVRAM are not persistent.
 
The UEFI Vars file is currently copied to /tmp on a VMs startup, this was done as it was implemented (and not much was actual settable) and wasn't updated since because it was simply overseen a little and not requested.

Not ideal I know, sorry, it's on the todo list. You could open a bug report/feature request at https://bugzilla.proxmox.com/ so we have that documented and saved, as its not on the front of my todo list at the moment. :)
 
Hi,

Is there an official patch now available for this issue?

I have a similar problem with a Fedora 24 guest using OVMF and get a BootOrder not found error (Secure boot isn't enabled in OVMF)

Thanks
 
Hi guys,

I'm wondering if there is still no fix for that?! I'm currently evaluating proxmox pve (pve 4.2.2). I can't get ubuntu server 16.04 to boot using uefi with proxmox automatically. Is there at least a workaround?
It can't be that the boot options need to be set with every restart of the VM... I also tried to copy the ubuntu boot loader to /efi/boot/bootx64.efi as this was the solution on VMware player which also seem to have problems with saving uefi vars persistently - but no luck on proxmox OVMF.
I also tried to change the VMs driver to virtio-scsi - no luck either...

Thanks
Markus
 
Hi guys,

I'm wondering if there is still no fix for that?! I'm currently evaluating proxmox pve (pve 4.2.2). I can't get ubuntu server 16.04 to boot using uefi with proxmox automatically. Is there at least a workaround?
It can't be that the boot options need to be set with every restart of the VM... I also tried to copy the ubuntu boot loader to /efi/boot/bootx64.efi as this was the solution on VMware player which also seem to have problems with saving uefi vars persistently - but no luck on proxmox OVMF.
I also tried to change the VMs driver to virtio-scsi - no luck either...

Thanks
Markus

Hi,
it's work for me with /EFI/BOOT/BOOTx64.EFI (not sure if case sensitive is important),
and virtio-scsi
 
Hi,
it's work for me with /EFI/BOOT/BOOTx64.EFI (not sure if case sensitive is important),
and virtio-scsi

Hi Spirit,

thanks for the reply. And yes, it seems when you set up the boot loader the the standard way it also now works for me now. It might be that my EFI partition was not unmounted cleanly so that the UEFI would not read it... I don't know. But for every one else who might stumble across this the following seems required to automatically boot a guest OS using UEFI/OVMF:
1) in the vm options use "VIRTIO scsi" as SCSI controller type
2) use a VIRTIO for the disk in hardware of the vm
3) put the EFI boot loader you want to use and all relevant files (e.g. grub.cfg) in the standard location within the EFI partition which is:
/EFI/Boot/bootx64.efi (I'm also not sure if case sensitivity is relevant)
4) check the fs of the EFI partition after you copied the boot loader
5) unmount the EFI partition before reboot so it's clean.

But for the problem of EFI boot vars not sticking: it still seems to be the case in 4.2.2 ...

Cheers
Markus
 
Hey, thanks for those details. Getting a lot further with having a test UEFI vm here.

I am having problems with network connection, though. Do you know what are the options for network card? My Ubuntu MATE 16.04.1 guest VM can't make a connection through the OVS bridge, with VLAN tag.

EDIT: Got it to connect with NAT, which is enough for me to use as a desktop for testing, but getting it on one of my VLANs would be much better, so any ideas are welcome.
A similar VM booting with SeaBIOS can connect with anything you throw at it, same machine, same settings.

EDIT2: Ok, forget it. I rebooted the host, and now everything works. Must have been something else.
 
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