Dell Poweredge T20 iPXE Integration Request

Discussion in 'BIOS Mods' started by hicksel, Oct 29, 2020.

  1. hicksel

    hicksel MDL Novice

    May 27, 2017
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    Hello,

    I have multiple Dell Powerdege T20 in remote locations. I manage them using the built in AMT functionality. But reinstalling this way is almost impossible since the virtual cd drive is limited to 1mbit/s so even trying to install with the debian netinstall iso is painfully slow.
    Using network boot to load the installer would be better but I can´t setup a PXE environment with tftp server at the remote locations.
    To solve this I want to use iPXE which is a network booting firmware that allows booting debian directly from the debian servers. Normally if you have a dedicated network card you can burn the iPXE firmware directly on the card. But since the T20 has a integrated I217-LM network card(PCI id 8086:153a) I need to modify the bios. IPXE also supports building a efirom and efi executable so just embedding these without altering the built in pxe support would be even better since this should minimize the risk of problems with amt.
    I have previously modded my Gigabyte mainboard to support nvme boot with UEFI BIOS Updater but apparently Dell uses Phoenix bios.
    Trying to open the latest A20 Bios with the SLIC Tool strangely only works with v2.66 and not v2.73 but detects “EFI / Insyde BIOS”.
    I also see DXE Drivers and PEI Modules in the structure window but I'm not sure where and how to insert the compiled ipxe binaries.
    Links:
    ipxe . org/download
    www . dell . com/support/home/en-uk/drivers/driversdetails?driverid=5c452

    Can someone please give me some guidance about how to insert the efi roms or replace the network card rom?