UEFI HTTP boot support in the Installer
Hello Installer and Kernel teams.
It is now possible to boot d-i using UEFI HTTP boot. No need to copy the
ISO to a USB stick or configure DHCP and PXE or similar netboot setups,
just specify the ISO URL in your firmware configuration.
For Tianocore the procedure is as follows:
Device Manager -> Network Device List -> (choose device) ->
HTTP Boot Configuration -> Boot URI -> (add ISO URL)
Save and go back to the main menu, then:
Boot Manager -> UEFI HTTP
A few caveats:
- Notice the missing "s" in "UEFI HTTP boot". Only plain HTTP is
supported, not HTTPS.
- HTTP redirects, either 301 or 302, are also not supported. This means
that [1] does not work, whereas [2] does.
- Not a lot of UEFI implementations support this yet. Tianocore does,
and I've heard modern Dell, Lenovo and HP systems do too.
The missing pieces to get this working were:
- Adding pmem modules to the installer initrd [3] (Kernel 6.12.13-1)
- Recognizing pmem devices in list-devices-linux [4] (debian-installer-utils 1.152)
Thanks to ukleinek, carnil, and Sledge for reviewing and merging the
patches.
ema
[1] http://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/daily-builds/daily/arch-latest/amd64/iso-cd/debian-testing-amd64-netinst.iso
[2] http://chuangtzu.ftp.acc.umu.se/cdimage/daily-builds/daily/arch-latest/amd64/iso-cd/debian-testing-amd64-netinst.iso
[3] https://salsa.debian.org/kernel-team/linux/-/merge_requests/1167
[4] https://salsa.debian.org/installer-team/debian-installer-utils/-/merge_requests/14
Reply to: