DEV HELP: Booting Truenas from custom ipxe issue

[lp35]

Hi,

I'm trying to make a POC of booting Truenas SCALE from netbootxyz.

I have forked the netboot.xyz-custom and I can't make the liveCD to boot. The kernel boot but I have a VFS error that the filesystem can't be loaded from (0,0).

This is the content of the ISO file:

dr-xr-xr-x. 1 test  test     5  8 juil. 19:35 boot
dr-xr-xr-x. 1 test  test     3  8 juil. 19:34 .disk
dr-xr-xr-x. 1 test  test     3  8 juil. 19:35 EFI
-r--r--r--. 1 test  test  2,9M  8 juil. 19:35 efi.img
-r--r--r--. 1 test  test   37M  8 juil. 19:34 initrd.img
dr-xr-xr-x. 1 test  test     3  8 juil. 19:34 live
-r--r--r--. 1 test  test     0  8 juil. 19:35 mach_kernel
dr-xr-xr-x. 1 test  test     3  8 juil. 19:35 System
-r--r--r--. 1 test  test  1,3G  8 juil. 19:34 TrueNAS-SCALE.update
-r--r--r--. 1 test  test  8,9M  8 juil. 19:34 vmlinuz

Notice that there is a big file, TrueNAS-SCALE.update that I will surely need to make available to the boot env at some point, and I have no clue on how to do it.

FYI, this is the content of the grub file I've found in Truenas installation media /boot/grub:

function load_video {
  if [ x$feature_all_video_module = xy ]; then
    insmod all_video
  else
    insmod efi_gop
    insmod efi_uga
    insmod ieee1275_fb
    insmod vbe
    insmod vga
    insmod video_bochs
    insmod video_cirrus
  fi
}

set prefix=($root)/boot/grub
if loadfont $prefix/fonts/unicode.pf2 ; then
  set gfxmode=auto
  load_video
  insmod gfxterm
  insmod serial
  set locale_dir=$prefix/locale
  set lang=en_US
  set gfxpayload=keep
fi

if [ "$grub_platform" = xen ]; then
  set serial_console=""
  set gfx_console="console=hvc0"
else
  set serial_console="console=ttyS0,115200n8"
  set gfx_console="console=tty0"
  set default="serial"
  serial --unit=0 --speed=115200 --word=8 --parity=no --stop=1
  if terminal_output gfxterm; then
    set default="video"
    terminal_output --append serial
    terminal_input --append serial
  elif [ "$grub_platform" = pc ]; then
    # PC console generally outputs to only the video console
    terminal_input console serial
    terminal_output console serial
  elif [ "$grub_platform" = efi ]; then
    # EFI console generally outputs to both the video console and serial port
    terminal_input console
    terminal_output console
  fi
fi

# With serial input enabled, sleep helps consume buffered input
# grub.cfg generated by grub-install also includes the sleep for this purpose.
sleep -i 1

set menu_color_normal=cyan/blue
set menu_color_highlight=white/blue

if [ "${recordfail}" = 1 ] ; then
  set timeout=30
else
  if [ x$feature_timeout_style = xy ] ; then
#    set timeout_style=hidden
    set timeout=15
  # Fallback hidden-timeout code in case the timeout_style feature is
  # unavailable.
  elif sleep --interruptible 0 ; then
    set timeout=15
  fi
fi

insmod play
play 960 440 1 0 4 440 1
menuentry --hotkey=i --id=video 'Start TrueNAS SCALE Installation' {
    load_video
    set background_color=black
    linux    /vmlinuz gfxpayload=text quiet nomodeset boot=live toram=filesystem.squashfs $gfx_console
    initrd   /initrd.img
}
menuentry --hotkey=j --id=serial 'Start TrueNAS SCALE Installation (115200 baud)' {
    load_video
    set background_color=black
    linux    /vmlinuz gfxpayload=text quiet nomodeset boot=live toram=filesystem.squashfs $gfx_console $serial_console
    initrd   /initrd.img
}

Content of my ipxe (a bit dirty).

#!ipxe
###
### netboot.xyz-custom menu example
###

:custom
clear custom_choice
menu This is a Test Menu
item --gap This is the first sub menu
item option_one ${space} Loading a kernel and initrd
item option_two ${space} Loading an ISO
item --gap This is a second sub menu
item option_three ${space} Loads another custom sub menu
item option_four ${space} This is option four
choose custom_choice || goto custom_exit
echo ${cls}
goto ${custom_choice}
goto custom_exit

:option_one
kernel http://netbootxyz.DOMAIN.org/vmlinuz ip=dhcp boot=casper netboot=url toram initrd=initrd.img url=http://netbootxyz.DOMAIN.org/live/filesystem.squashfs
initrd http://netbootxyz.DOMAIN.org/initrd.img
boot || goto custom_exit

:custom_exit
chain utils.ipxe
exit

Any clue on how to boot the thing?

[meanaverage]

I know it's been QUITE some time, but after trying for the last 4 hours with netboot, boot over http, ipxe, 30 different config files, trying to boot TrueNAS from a custom zipped extraction of the iso, the raw image, through sanboot, through sanhook, etc, grub with different efi builds...

I have given up. I don't think it's possible. Something about their initrd doesn't have or does have what ipxe.efi needs or doesn't support. There is an incompatibility somewhere and I can't spend anymore time on this. But, very annoying.

I've read elsewhere that this may work with versions prior to 24.10, but cannot confirm as haven't tried older versions. All of my attempts were on 25.10 iso or its files.