[Bug 1900773] Re: thunderx CRB systems tftp timeout downloading initrd

[dann frazier]

Since technically GRUB is requesting the initrd file, I tried to rule it
out as a possible cause by seeing if the initial payload that UEFI
downloads directly would time out if it was the same size. I did this by
padding my grubnetaa64.efi binary to be the same size as the installer
initrd.

 mv grubnetaa64.efi grubnetaa64.efi.orig
 cp casper/initrd grubnetaa64.efi
 dd if=grubnetaa64.efi.orig of=grubnetaa64 conv=notrunc

This did *not* timeout. So unfortunately we can't obviously rule out
GRUB as a factor.

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1900773

Title:
  thunderx CRB systems tftp timeout downloading initrd

Status in livecd-rootfs package in Ubuntu:
  New

Bug description:
  groovy-live-server-arm64.iso 20201020.1

  When attempting to netboot subiquity on a Cavium ThunderX CRB2S, the
  system always times out downloading the initrd - see below. It seems
  the initrd, which is LZ4 compressed to 87M, is just too large. If I
  recompress the initrd using lzma - shrinking it to 44M, I am able to
  boot it. While that successfully works around the issue, I wouldn't
  expect the average user to know to do it.

                           GNU GRUB  version 2.04

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        Use the  and  keys to select which entry is highlighted.          
        Press enter to boot the selected OS, `e' to edit the commands       
        before booting or `c' for a command-line.                           

  error: timeout reading `initrd'.

  Press any key to continue...

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