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brtlvrs
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Enthusiast

Stateless install ESXi-arm on rpi fails

I'm trying to setup ESXi-arm stateless installation on my rpi.
Following several blog articles, mainly circling around articles of William Lam.
I've got my kickstart server running. It is another rpi, running docker containers with dnsmasq, http, ntp etc..
And I can pxe boot ESXi installations in my homelab.
But not for the rpi.

I've moved the rpi to its own network segment with its own dnsmasq and http service.
When I mask the line 
#dhcp-boot=tag:aarch64,/var/lib/tftpboot/esxiarm/EFI/BOOT/BOOTAA64.EFI,192.168.87.1

The boot of the rpi fails with netboot init fail
When I uncomment the line. The rpi boots, I get the rainbow colored screen, and the rpi boot menu ... but then it reboots.
It looks like it doesnt find the bootAA64.efi file. (which I can download with a tftp client)...

I've followed the instructions for th eeprom. It is running bootloader c302dea0 jun 15 2020
And I'm using rpi firmware files EUFI firmware 1.20

Any Ideas ?
Ow  in the posts of william lam dnsmasq  the rpi reports

vendor class: PXEClient:Arch:00011:UNDI:003000

mine reports 

vendor class: PXEClient:Arch:00000:UNDI:002001

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brtlvrs
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The remark about the vendor class is wrong.
It turns out that the class PXEClient:Arch:00000:UNDI:002001 is used for loading the rpi firmware

The class PXEClient:Arch:00011:UNDI:003000, which you see in all the blog posts is from the pxe client after the firmware is loaded.
It looks like my issue has to do with the firmware, and it's config. It doens't do pxe boot at the moment...

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brtlvrs
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It works

In the end I followed the fling documentation for installing esxi-arm with an SD card.
Then I entered the boot menu and made changes, like disabling the 3 GB limit.
Then I copied the content of the SD card to my TFTP server into a directory uefiSD
And created a symbolic link to /var/lib/tftp/uefiSD <serialID rPI>

And now pxe boot works fine.
I'm going to work this out on my blog.

But running ESXi-arm stateless is working in my system. Now I need to configure it so I can have it working as part of vCenter.

 

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