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AdrianKoshka/make_ipxe_uefi_usb.md

Last active April 30, 2024 17:42
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Making a UEFI bootable iPXE USB drive
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make_ipxe_uefi_usb.md

Making a UEFI bootable iPXE USB drive

Build the UEFI executable for iPXE

# First we'll clone iPXE
$ git clone git://git.ipxe.org/ipxe.git
# Go into the src directory of the cloned git repo
$ cd ipxe/src
# Compile the UEFI iPXE executable
$ make bin-x86_64-efi/ipxe.efi

Format the USB drive

# First we'll wipe the USB drive (THIS WILL DESTROY ALL DATA)
$ sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sdxY bs=512 count=1
# Then we'll partition the drive
$ sudo cfdisk /dev/sdxY
# cfdisk will ask you what type of partition table you want, select GPT

Partitioning the USB drive

  1. Make a partition at least 512M in size.
  2. Switch the type from Linux Filesystem to EFI system.
  3. Write these changes to the USB drive and quit.

Formatting, and mounting the USB drive

# First we'll format it FAT32
$ sudo mkfs.fat -F32 /dev/sdxY
# Now we'll make a directory to mount the USB drive in
$ mkdir /tmp/efidrive
# Now we can mount the USB drive
$ sudo mount /dev/sdxY /tmp/efidrive

Placing the UEFI iPXE executable

# Assuming you're still in the ipxe/src directory
# Make the necessary efi/boot directory in the USB drive
$ sudo mkdir -p /tmp/efidrive/efi/boot
# copy the executable and rename it to bootx64.efi to conform to the UEFI standard
$ sudo cp bin-x86_64-efi/ipxe.efi /tmp/efidrive/efi/boot/bootx64.efi
# unmount the drive
$ sudo umount /tmp/efidrive

You did it!

That's it! You should now have a UEFI-bootable USB drive with the UEFI ipxe binary!

Credit

@jeffshead
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jeffshead commented Mar 31, 2024 •
edited

After a bit of tweaking i made a hybrid...

Thanks for sharing. I used your commands to create a USB thumb drive and it works but the drive does not support Ethernet connections made via USB-to-Ethernet adapters. Can this be made to work with such devices? The code listed on this page works with USB-to-Ethernet adapters but it only supports legacy BIOS.

UPDATE: So I was successful in creating a USB thumb drive that works with USB-to-Ethernet adapters by adding the USB drivers. Using your commands, I replaced all instances of ipxe.usb with ncm--ecm--axge.usb and replaced ipxe.efi with ncm--ecm--axge.efi.

This works but when PXE booting UEFI, the keyboard stops working. Doesn't do this when PXE booting legacy BIOS. Any ideas?

@brokeDude2901
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he is the man, thanks

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