[Bug 1822007] Re: Grub fails to request the /grub/grub.cfg over HTTP when booting with UEFI HTTP

Thu Apr 18 16:22:28 UTC 2019

After additional testing with hardware (instead of in VMs), it looks
like things are working fine on Lenovo hardware.

I managed to get access to a Lenovo SR670 server. I deployed it from an
existing MAAS, along with a second server (some random node we'll call
http-server) to be an HTTP server, since I couldn't update the existing
MAAS server to the right commits.

So; http-server was a deployed node from MAAS, on which I simply
installed 'apache2'. On that server, I removed index.html from
/var/www/html and instead put in bootx64.efi, grubx64.efi, a grub
directory with a custom grub.cfg file, and a directory structure copied
from MAAS to have a kernel and initrd available. No further actions are
required on http-server.

The existing MAAS server was slightly modified to point to the HTTP
server: edited /var/lib/maas/dhcpd.conf to add the following snippet
(same as in description with the URI updated for http-server):

"""
} elsif option arch = 00:0f {
    # uefi_amd64_http
    filename "http://http-server:80/bootx64.efi";
    option vendor-class-identifier "HTTPClient";
} elsif option arch = 00:10 {
    # uefi_amd64_http
    filename "http://http-server:80/bootx64.efi";
    option vendor-class-identifier "HTTPClient";
"""

Next; the Lenovo SR670 was configured to boot from the network using
UEFI HTTP Boot (see https://lenovopress.com/lp0736.pdf); and restarted
with a One-time Boot Option; where HTTP Boot was selected.

On the BMC for the Lenovo SR670; one can watch the system boot, request
files from HTTP, and potentially show a grub menu or otherwise follow
the instructions for booting listed in grub.cfg on http-server.

Watching on http-server, one can see in the apache access.log for
requests from the Lenovo SR670:

10.193.36.45 - - [18/Apr/2019:16:10:36 +0000] "HEAD /bootx64.efi HTTP/1.1" 200 211 "-" "UefiHttpBoot/1.0"
10.193.36.45 - - [18/Apr/2019:16:10:36 +0000] "GET /bootx64.efi HTTP/1.1" 200 1335027 "-" "UefiHttpBoot/1.0"
10.193.36.45 - - [18/Apr/2019:16:10:37 +0000] "GET //grubx64.efi HTTP/1.1" 200 1164875 "-" "UefiHttpBoot/1.0"
10.193.36.45 - - [18/Apr/2019:16:10:37 +0000] "GET /grub/x86_64-efi/command.lst HTTP/1.1" 404 464 "-" "GRUB 2.02-2ubuntu8.13"
10.193.36.45 - - [18/Apr/2019:16:10:37 +0000] "GET /grub/x86_64-efi/fs.lst HTTP/1.1" 404 459 "-" "GRUB 2.02-2ubuntu8.13"
10.193.36.45 - - [18/Apr/2019:16:10:37 +0000] "GET /grub/x86_64-efi/crypto.lst HTTP/1.1" 404 463 "-" "GRUB 2.02-2ubuntu8.13"
10.193.36.45 - - [18/Apr/2019:16:10:37 +0000] "GET /grub/x86_64-efi/terminal.lst HTTP/1.1" 404 465 "-" "GRUB 2.02-2ubuntu8.13"
10.193.36.45 - - [18/Apr/2019:16:10:37 +0000] "GET /grub/grub.cfg HTTP/1.1" 200 338 "-" "GRUB 2.02-2ubuntu8.13"
10.193.36.45 - - [18/Apr/2019:16:10:37 +0000] "GET /grub/grub.cfg-default-amd64 HTTP/1.1" 200 278 "-" "GRUB 2.02-2ubuntu8.13"

This makes me conclude that grub2 does what it is supposed to, and thus
any issues might be due to limitations in the EDK2 implementation of
HTTP Boot -- possibly some registers or EFI variables are not being
updated appropriately. Reassigning to edk2.

** Package changed: grub2 (Ubuntu) => edk2 (Ubuntu)

** Summary changed:

- Grub fails to request the /grub/grub.cfg over HTTP when booting with UEFI HTTP
+ QEMU UEFI VMs fail to request the /grub/grub.cfg over HTTP when booting with UEFI HTTP

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1822007

Title:
  QEMU UEFI VMs fail to request the /grub/grub.cfg over HTTP when
  booting with UEFI HTTP

Status in edk2 package in Ubuntu:
  Triaged

Bug description:
  While implementing the complete UEFI HTTP booting path for MAAS I have
  hit a roadblock. Grub2 is loaded but then fails to request the
  /grub/grub.cfg as it does when booting with UEFI PXE (aka. TFTP).

  The dhcpd.conf has the following in it to tell the UEFI firmware to
  load the bootx64.efi (signed-shim) over HTTP.

  } elsif option arch = 00:0f {
      # uefi_amd64_http
      filename "http://192.168.122.2:5248/bootx64.efi";
      option vendor-class-identifier "HTTPClient";
  } elsif option arch = 00:10 {
      # uefi_amd64_http
      filename "http://192.168.122.2:5248/bootx64.efi";
      option vendor-class-identifier "HTTPClient";
  } elsif option arch = 00:0B {

  This works correctly because the UEFI firmware does load the
  bootx64.efi then the shim loads the grubx64.efi over HTTP.

  2019-03-27 23:21:59 provisioningserver.rackdservices.http: [info] bootx64.efi requested by 192.168.122.193
  2019-03-27 23:21:59 provisioningserver.rackdservices.http: [info] grubx64.efi requested by 192.168.122.193

  No other requests are received from that point forward. Grub2 reports
  the following error:

  Error: Unexpected network error.

  Checking the grub2 environment it does seem wierd that none of the
  networking variables are set they are completely blank.

  grub_cpu=x86_64
  grub_platform=efi
  net_default_ip=(null)
  net_default_mac=(null)
  net_default_server=
  package_version=2.02+dfsg1-12ubuntu2
  prefix=
  pxe_default_server=
  root=

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