Re: [Qemu-devel] iPXE timeout missing

[Gerd Hoffmann]

On So, 2014-04-13 at 02:05 +0200, Sebastian wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> when trying current qemu git, I noticed the iPXE timeout has been removed:
> 
> commit 95ca557d5cfc1ef69ba9708ded552f389afe643d
> Author: Gerd Hoffmann <address@hidden>
> Date:   Mon Mar 25 09:07:40 2013 +0100
> 
>      ipxe: disable two second timeout
> 
> By removing the timeout, access to the iPXE command line is now 
> impossible (pressing Ctrl+B in the timeout breaks the script). The 
> command line access is (more or less) required when installing an 
> operating system from local media to a SAN device:
> 
>  > dhcp net0
>  > set keep-san 1 (keep SAN after failure)
>  > sanboot iscsi:.... (fails, no valid MBR)
>  > exit (boot other devices)
> 
> This way, the operating system installer (e.g. Windows Vista/7) sees the 
> SAN.
> 
> Is there a reason for removing the timeout?

Speed up boot.  Having to wait two seconds even when not booting from
the nic isn't very nice ...

Recently ipxe got two separate Ctrl-B timeouts, one which is applied at
load time, and one which is applied when actually booting from the nic.
See
https://git.ipxe.org/ipxe.git/commitdiff/27d1b40ee961d0910576a094a71dea1211254776

When updating iPXE to a version newer than that we can enable prompt
access without delaying boot for everybody.  /me puts that on the
post-2.0-release todo list.

For the time being you can build your own roms.  Go to roms/, edit
config.ipxe.general.h and set the timeout as you like, then "make pxerom
efirom".

HTH,
  Gerd