Hello,
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. [..]
Really a nice job, thank you.I successfully started the http://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/daily-builds/daily/arch-latest/amd64/iso-cd/debian-testing-amd64-netinst.iso using a QEMU VM with Tianocore EUFI firmware and a *local* HTTP server.
I have a few questions about the UEFI HTTP boot support in the Debian Installer for the next stable release (Trixie):
1) Will the Debian-testing-amd64-netinst.iso be the only Debian-installer ISO released for Debian Trixie with UEFI HTTP boot support?
2) In the future, could it be reasonable to create a version of the Debian Installer ISO that is specifically reduced in size to support UEFI HTTP boot, making it suitable for installations on computers with 1.5 GB or less of RAM (the ISO image is loaded into memory and is currently 800 KB in size, leaving insufficient memory for the installer to work properly)?
3) Does the Debian-Installer ISO need to be specifically crafted to be UEFI HTTP boot support compliant, other than adding pmem modules to the installer initrd and recognising pmem devices in list-devices-linux?
4) Is it reasonable to consider a dedicated, shorter URL for serving Debian ISO images for UEFI HTTP booting, given the limitations of UEFI in handling HTTP redirects and to simplify the long URLs required for manual configuration ?
Ideally, the Debian Installer would be accessible via the internet more often in the future, just like some SBC manufacturers have recently started to do. This would be possible to the extent that UEFI firmware support allows.
Thanks.