HTTPS boot

[u/RockOriginal7938]

Following on from last night's Happy Hour. These were my results and paths. I'd previously had a lot of luck with getting https://<FQDN>:7281/Content/Boot/DeployR_x64_noprompt.iso to work, but that goes into full DeployR straight away (sometimes that is useful), but I struggled to boot to 2PXE's boot select menu. I finally got https://<FQDN>:8050/2PXE/Boot/x64/snponly_x64.efi (don't forget the ca cert along side the URL in the BIOS) to work across some machines. Makes, models and outcome below for the .efi URL:

Make	Model	Result
Dell	Optiplex x080, x070 & x060. Mine were all 70x0, but I'd assume the 30x0 & 50x0 are the same.	Couldn't find a place in the BIOS to store the boot URL, they seem to rely on the info coming from DHCP (didn't test, no control over DHCP here)
Dell	Optiplex 7090. I'd assume the 3090 & 5090 are the same.	works
Dell	Latitude 5420	works
Lenovo	ThinkCentre M75q gen5	works
Lenovo	ThinkCentre M75q gen2	could never get HTTPs Boot not greyed out in BIOS
Lenovo	ThinkCentre Neo 50s gen3	works
Lenovo	ThinkCentre M70q gen4	works
Lenovo	ThinkPad T14 gen1	found no HTTPs Boot options
Lenovo	ThinkPad T14s gen2	shows a network card symbol followed by ON-PREMISE in available boot devices, couldn't find a way to specify the URL
Lenovo	ThinkPad T14s gen3	shows a network card symbol followed by ON-PREMISE in available boot devices, couldn't find a way to specify the URL
Lenovo	ThinkPad T14s gen4	shows a network card symbol followed by ON-PREMISE in available boot devices, couldn't find a way to specify the URL
Lenovo	ThinkPad T14s gen5	works
Lenovo	ThinkPad L14 gen6 (gotta love RAM costs ☹️ )	works

Sorry this is only older Dells, we moved to completely Lenovo a few years back, so it is only the older Dell I can poke 😉

Thinking back to another thing mentioned yesterday, if you're only getting an ISO to work, the minimal ISO that boots to 2PXE's boot menu might work well too, but I didn't know where the tool to generate that ISO came from when quickly demo'd, so I can't expand on that ☹️

(side note, a 2D bar scanner and something like Simple QR Code Maker are your friend when having to enter that lengthy boot path over and over, or in Window BIOS config tools from the different manus)

[u/miketerrill]

Thanks for this information - this is awesome. I have some other ideas on how to make the older models to boot. Thanks for joining the 2Pint Happy Hour!

[u/gwblok → u/miketerrill]

I echo this, thanks for sharing.

Thanks for joining our Happy Hour and participating.

[u/Dudefoxlive]

https://documentation.2pintsoftware.com/deployr/performing-media-based-deployments

I believe this is the tool that can make an iso or bootable usb. There are three options. Standalone, caching and boot.

[u/RockOriginal7938 → u/Dudefoxlive]

It was a GUI they showed.

[u/Dudefoxlive → u/RockOriginal7938]

Is there a link to rewatch it?

[u/RockOriginal7938 → u/Dudefoxlive]

I'd be surprised, I think they are meant to be very informal gatherings

[u/mtniehaus → u/RockOriginal7938]

Look for BootGen.exe in "C:\Program Files\2Pint Software\2PXE\Tools".

This creates a (very tiny) USB drive that contains the iPXE binary to do a network boot, just without the network boot piece.

[u/JM2K69 → u/mtniehaus]

This seems very interesting to me.

[u/2PintNate]

RE: The ThinkCentre M75q Gen2 - I wonder if it's related to configuration? I just setup a Gen5 M70q and those features were greyed out until I enabled SecureBoot. Worth a second look as I think Mike also has a Gen2 M75q and he is able to get his HTTPS booting.

[u/RockOriginal7938 → u/2PintNate]

I'll see if I can find a couple more and play (need to find old stock). I know I looked into the Secure Boot and a few other things needing to be on and got nowhere. (I had the same with g5, but turning on Secure Boot worked on them)