Home / server / Questions / 323508
In Process
MikeyB
Asked: 2011-10-21 16:28:55 +0800 CST

UEFI netboot menu

  • 772

I have an existing PXE syslinux environment and I'd like to set up a similar EFI-based netboot environment.

I'm a big fan of the various menus as seen in the screenshot below and I'd like to find something equivalent.

Ideal features would be:

  • Menus
  • Sub-menus
  • Linux kernel/initrd TFTP load (naturally)
  • Arbitrary EFI application load
  • Fallthrough to next boot option

What piece of software meets these needs?

Syslinux screenshot

netboot uefi tftp

5 Answers

  1. ELILO: EFI Linux Boot Loader is very easy to implement and meets some of the criteria:

    • ☑ Menus
    • ☐ Sub-menus
    • ☑ Linux kernel/initrd TFTP load (naturally)
    • ☐ Arbitrary EFI application load
    • ☑ Fallthrough to next boot option

    ELILO screenshot

    (eventually I'll document what's required to get it working end-to-end…)

    • 2

  2. I don't think there is a specific piece of software that accomplishes this. Here's an article that might help you out: PXE Magic: Flexible Network Booting with Menus

    • -1

  3. Even tough it would be more or less trivial to implement such a thing with the uEFI framework there are only toy uEFI applications which will boot a kernel image via http or tftp out there.

    Also most uEFI machines only have a BIOS-like text mode UI, so no graphical stuff there - but I'd expect some to appear soon as the uEFI adaptation has now progressed into mainstream desktop/laptop machinery.

    • -1

  4. From my understandings of the standards, PXE doesn't really care if there's an EFI or plain old BIOS underlying.

    You (may) just need to make sure that the image you're loading over the network is compatible with EFI. GRUB2 is EFI-ready, can't confirm it for SYSLINUX, as the site is currently down (I do know however, that it was worked on).

    Looks like you can even reuse most of you already existing system by just swapping out the bootloader image.

    • -1

  5. The sad truth: This isn't currently possible. There is some work being done to support EFI in Syslinux, but my impression that it is far from complete.

    • -1