HP ProDesk 400 G6 i3-10100T - EFI PXE building Linux

[osilevel8issue]

Hello,

I am hoping that someone may be able to assist with an issue I am experiencing.

I am trying to PXE build a ProDesk 400 G6 with UEFI on CentOS 7 . This model does not support legacy booting so UEFI it is. My PXE server can EFI build ProDesk 400 G4 and ProDesk 400 G5, as well as other devices from different manufacturers, however this machine will not build, with an error of '/dev/root does not exist' killing the process.

As mentioned, the same process can build earlier models using EFI without issue. Can anyone confirm of this model is known to be compatible with PXE building Linux using EFI (or indeed not), or if legacy booting can be enabled on the device?

Any help greatly appreciated as information on the subject matter is scarce.

[WAWood]

@osilevel8issue 

Sorry for the bad news, but the main reason you have not received any replies is that HP does not provide Linux support.

Your best bet for such support would the the CentOS support forum -- but you probably already know that.

[osilevel8issue]

Thank you for the response.

We have worked out what the issue is, hopefully this may help anyone else.

The G6 and G7 machines are supplied with Intel I219-LM network interface cards. These cards require an up to date version of the Intel e1000e driver to function.

Unfortunately, this version of the driver is not present in the kernels available for CentOS 7. It is possible to unpack the tarball available from the Intel download, and compile the driver on a built system. However, this does not work for PXE booting, and neither does injecting the compiled module into a PXE boot initramfs.