Troubleshoot iPXE boot issues

Container Cloud relies on iPXE to remotely bootstrap bare metal machines before provisioning them to Kubernetes clusters. The remote bootstrap with iPXE depends on the state of the underlay network. Incorrect or suboptimal configuration of the underlay network can cause the process to fail.

The following error may mean that network configuration is incorrect:

iPXE 1.21.1+ (g74c5) - Open Source Network Boot Firmware - http://ipxe.org
Features: DNS HTTP iSCSI TFTP SRP AoE EFI Menu

net2: 3c:ec:ef:70:39:fe using 14e4-16D8 on 0000:ca:00.0 (Ethernet) [open]
  [Link:up, TX:0 TXE:1 RX:0 RXE:0]
  [TXE: 1 x "Network unreachable (http://ipxe.org/28086090)"]
Configuring (net2 3c:ec:ef:70:39:fe)...... No configuration methods
succeeded (http://ipxe.org/040ee186)
No more network devices

Network switch not forwarding packets for a prolonged period after the server brings up a link to a switch port may be the reason for this error. It may happen because the switch waits for the Spanning Tree Protocol (STP) configuration on the port.

To avoid this issue, configure the ports connecting the servers in STP portfast mode. See details in the vendor documentation for your particular network switch, for example: