NetBSD Problem Report #56213

From he@smistad.uninett.no  Thu May 27 13:57:40 2021
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Message-Id: <20210527135734.555F743FD4C@smistad.uninett.no>
Date: Thu, 27 May 2021 15:57:34 +0200 (CEST)
From: he@NetBSD.org
Reply-To: he@NetbSD.org
To: gnats-bugs@NetBSD.org
Subject: 9.2 UEFI boot from USB image fails on HP DL380 G6
X-Send-Pr-Version: 3.95

>Number:         56213
>Category:       install
>Synopsis:       9.2 UEFI boot from USB image fails on HP DL380 G6
>Confidential:   no
>Severity:       serious
>Priority:       medium
>Responsible:    install-manager
>State:          closed
>Class:          sw-bug
>Submitter-Id:   net
>Arrival-Date:   Thu May 27 14:00:00 +0000 2021
>Closed-Date:    Thu Dec 30 17:13:06 +0000 2021
>Last-Modified:  Thu Dec 30 17:13:06 +0000 2021
>Originator:     he@NetbSD.org
>Release:        NetBSD 9.2
>Organization:
I try...
>Environment:


System: NetBSD xxx.uninett.no 9.1_STABLE NetBSD 9.1_STABLE (GENERIC) #3: Mon Apr 12 10:46:29 CEST 2021 he@xxx.uninett.no:/usr/obj/sys/arch/amd64/compile/GENERIC amd64
Architecture: x86_64
Machine: amd64
>Description:
	Trying to boot a HP DL380 G6 system from an USB stick where
	the "img" install image for 9.2 has been dd'ed results in
	failure to boot.

	By the looks of it, the BIOS cannot be manually tweaked to do
	an "MBR boot".

	The first-stage boot loader loads and runs fine, but it fails
	to find /boot, so the boot fails in a cycle if the machine is
	left to it's own devices.

	I've also heard second-hand of UEFI boot of the "img" image
	failing in a virtualization environment, so the extent of the
	failure may be quite a bit wider than the narrow case of just
	the HP DL380 G6 systems.

>How-To-Repeat:
	Try to boot a HP DL380 G6 system from the USB install image,
	watch it fail to find /boot and therefore fail completely.

>Fix:
	I had to resort to using a USB-connected CD-ROM to get 9.2
	installed (the machine doesn't have built-in CD-ROM).

>Release-Note:

>Audit-Trail:
From: "David H. Gutteridge" <david@gutteridge.ca>
To: gnats-bugs@netbsd.org
Cc: 
Subject: Re: install/56213: 9.2 UEFI boot from USB image fails on HP DL380 G6
Date: Thu, 27 May 2021 14:58:50 -0400

 I'm seeing something similar with an HP DL360 G6, discussed a while
 back on tech-install[1]. In that case, it can boot with the old MBR-
 only version of the installer from 9.0, but not the newer unified
 version that supports both MBR and UEFI. It gets stuck in the same
 place as your machine, and Martin and I had got as far as confirming
 just that (since the boot output was also getting garbled). Martin has
 given me some other things to try, which I should do in the next day or
 so.

 Dave

 1. http://mail-index.netbsd.org/tech-install/2021/03/03/msg000658.html


From: "David H. Gutteridge" <david@gutteridge.ca>
To: gnats-bugs@netbsd.org
Cc: 
Subject: Re: install/56213: 9.2 UEFI boot from USB image fails on HP DL380 G6
Date: Wed, 23 Jun 2021 22:15:08 -0400

 I added debugging code at various points, and tested it on more than one
 machine, to see what would happen.

 The failure is happening in boot1.c, when it makes the consecutive
 open() calls. It tries the first two possibilities, they both fail, the
 next if block tests also fail ("fallback on partition 'a' from the
 disklabel"), so it doesn't try any further.

 Then I tried the 9.0 MBR installer image, added the same debugging code
 there, and found it succeeds at the first open() call in that case. (I
 wanted to see if it fell through to the "fallback on partition 'a' from
 the disklabel" case).

 I also looked through the code to see how it changed over time, in case
 there was a clue there, but I didn't see anything. But I'm out of my
 depths here, so who knows.

 Then I decided to try the "merged" installer on yet another laptop I
 hadn't tried at all before. It also failed to work there, but gave a
 completely different error message: "Invalid partition table!" (Which
 I think is coming from its BIOS, not our code.) The 9.0 MBR installer
 worked fine on it, though. So I'm wondering if there are weird firmwares
 that get confused by the mere presence of EFI content.

 Dave

From: "David H. Gutteridge" <david@gutteridge.ca>
To: gnats-bugs@netbsd.org
Cc: 
Subject: Re: install/56213: 9.2 UEFI boot from USB image fails on HP DL380 G6
Date: Tue, 31 Aug 2021 20:22:28 -0400

 Just to confirm, if you use the "old" MBR installer image from NetBSD
 9.0, does that work for you on this hardware?

 https://ftp.netbsd.org/pub/NetBSD/NetBSD-9.0/images/NetBSD-9.0-amd64-install.img.gz

 Dave



From: "David H. Gutteridge" <david@gutteridge.ca>
To: gnats-bugs@netbsd.org
Cc: 
Subject: Re: install/56213: 9.2 UEFI boot from USB image fails on HP DL380 G6
Date: Fri, 15 Oct 2021 12:48:34 -0400

 A new "bios"-only install image has been restored, and was just pulled
 up to the netbsd-9 branch this afternoon, so that's probably a better
 test source now (once one has been built by the releng cluster).

 http://mail-index.netbsd.org/source-changes/2021/10/15/msg133058.html

 Dave

State-Changed-From-To: open->feedback
State-Changed-By: gutteridge@NetBSD.org
State-Changed-When: Wed, 29 Dec 2021 19:59:08 +0000
State-Changed-Why:
Feedback was requested on particular installer types.

From: Havard Eidnes <he@NetBSD.org>
To: gnats-bugs@netbsd.org, david@gutteridge.ca
Cc: install-manager@netbsd.org, gnats-admin@netbsd.org,
 netbsd-bugs@netbsd.org
Subject: Re: install/56213: 9.2 UEFI boot from USB image fails on HP DL380
 G6
Date: Thu, 30 Dec 2021 11:27:39 +0100 (CET)

 >  A new "bios"-only install image has been restored, and was just pull=
 ed
 >  up to the netbsd-9 branch this afternoon, so that's probably a bette=
 r
 >  test source now (once one has been built by the releng cluster).
 >
 >  http://mail-index.netbsd.org/source-changes/2021/10/15/msg133058.htm=
 l

 Sorry for slow feedback, the new insttall image works nicely.

 - H=E5vard

State-Changed-From-To: feedback->closed
State-Changed-By: gutteridge@NetBSD.org
State-Changed-When: Thu, 30 Dec 2021 17:13:06 +0000
State-Changed-Why:
Issue resolved, thanks for confirming.

>Unformatted:

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