[SOLVED] Problems booting from ISO when using i440fx latest

[jdmac87]

Hi All,

I'm having issues booting from an ISO that uses a graphical grub.
It's worked fine until I upgraded to 8.1.

Everything is patched up-to-date at time of writing this.

The fix I've found is amending the VM hardware settings to utilize pc-i440fx-8.0.

When 8.1 is in use, the screens sticks on the word "boot:" after detecting a valid ISO (removing the ISO the usual search for a boot medium is apparent).

Was there some significant changes in 8.1's i440fx that could be causing this?
Or maybe something already reported?

Other than this, found 8.1 has been solid for me.

Thanks,

JD

 

[jdmac87]

Bumping the thread to see if anyone else has encountered something like this.
Retested today, still same - although to be fair didn't expect any different as I had not seen any patches to it.

 

[fiona]

Hi,
please share the VM configuration qm config <ID> and output of pveversion -v. Can you give more details about what ISO you are using?

Does using machine type q35 allow you to boot from the ISO?

Does using qm set <ID> --args "-machine pc,smbios-entry-point-type=32" allow you to boot from the ISO? Use qm set <ID> --delete args to revert the change.

 

[jdmac87]

Hi fiona,

Thanks for the reply.

I'm trying to use Check_Point_R81.10_T335.iso and Check_Point_R81.20_T631.iso ISO to boot.

• i440fx (8.1/latest) - Stuck at "boot:"
• q35 (8.1/latest) - "Stuck at "boot:"
• i440fx (8.0) - Boots and grub menu is available.
• q35 (8.0) - Boots and grub menu is available.
• i440fx (8.1/latest) with arguments suggested - Boots and grub menu is available.
• q35 (8.1/latest) with arguments suggested - VM won't start.

Seems the arguments worked, but what exactly did they change?

Thanks,

JD

----
Edited to add files with details requested.

 

[fiona]

I'm trying to use Check_Point_R81.10_T335.iso and Check_Point_R81.20_T631.iso ISO to boot.

Seems the arguments worked, but what exactly did they change?

You can try to report an issue to the vendor, because the don't seem to handle SMBIOS 3.0 tables correctly. This is the new default for 8.1 machine versions, see also here for more information (Windows also has a similar bug): https://gitlab.com/qemu-project/qemu/-/issues/2008#note_1712210029 Future QEMU versions might include a workaround, but the parsing of SMBIOS tables should still be fixed by the vendors.

You can work around the issue by pinning the machine version to 8.0 as you already found or using OVMF BIOS.

• i440fx (8.1/latest) - Stuck at "boot:"
• q35 (8.1/latest) - "Stuck at "boot:"
• i440fx (8.0) - Boots and grub menu is available.
• q35 (8.0) - Boots and grub menu is available.
• i440fx (8.1/latest) with arguments suggested - Boots and grub menu is available.

• q35 (8.1/latest) with arguments suggested - VM won't start.

For the last one, you would need to use qm set <ID> --args "-machine q35,smbios-entry-point-type=32". Otherwise Proxmox VE adds things expecting the q35 chipset and then you override the actual machine used leading to other issues

 

[jdmac87]

Thank you fiona.
That is a perfect explanation - thanks for clarification.

 

[AxxTxxM]

I also found an issue when using "i440fx (8.1/latest)"

I am using Windows Deployment Services (WDS on Windows Server 2019) and the VM is doing a PXE boot to install an OS image. All works fine PXE booting, but after the OS (Windows PE) loads and the WDS client tries to connect to the WDS server, I get the error "WdsClient: An error occurred while communicating with the Windows Deployment Services server. Please check to ensure that the server is operational and that the necessary ports are open on the server's firewall. Server name [<redacted>.<redacted>.com], Server IP address [192.168.<redacted>].

At first I thought it was network drivers, but I can press F10 to drop into a shell and network is fully functional. I tried changing many things (NIC, Drive controller type, q35 machine) but then randomly tried an older version of i440fx and it worked. Seems it is fine with 8.0 or older, but 8.1 or using q35 fails. So probably a similar incompatibility.

I am mainly posting this as the Internet is devoid of much info on WDS problems and hopefully I can save someone the two days it took me to figure this out.

 

[jdmac87]

I've retested my issue using Latest/9.0 which I just noticed, and the ISO I had issues with boots fine and without any customization (like changing arguments).

• i440fx (8.0) - Boots and grub menu is available.
• i440fx (8.1) - Stuck at "boot:"
• i440fx (8.2) - Stuck at "boot:"
• i440fx (9.0/latest) - Boots and grub menu is available.

 

[fiona]

I've retested my issue using Latest/9.0 which I just noticed, and the ISO I had issues with boots fine and without any customization (like changing arguments).

• i440fx (8.0) - Boots and grub menu is available.
• i440fx (8.1) - Stuck at "boot:"
• i440fx (8.2) - Stuck at "boot:"
• i440fx (9.0/latest) - Boots and grub menu is available.

Thank you for the confirmation! Yes, upstream fixed the issue after I reported it. If you check the already linked gitlab issue, you'll find the fix: https://gitlab.com/imammedo/qemu/-/commit/13919efa4c4fc4d6810e21a5b94bc10119dd850c

 

[jdmac87]

Thank you for the confirmation! Yes, upstream fixed the issue after I reported it. If you check the already linked gitlab issue, you'll find the fix: https://gitlab.com/imammedo/qemu/-/commit/13919efa4c4fc4d6810e21a5b94bc10119dd850c

Brilliant. Thanks Fiona.