Ben's notes

This how-to is based on Debian 9 and will result in a compiled EFI firmware binary, capable of booting over HTTP instead of TFTP.

New systems that support UEFI 2.5 and up (HPE, Lenovo) will be able to boot over HTTP(S). Compared to TFTP, HTTP is faster, can transfer much larger files and can be encrypted (TLS).

Documentation:

• Build OVMF: https://github.com/tianocore/tianocore.github.io/wiki/How-to-build-OVMF
• HTTP Boot: https://github.com/tianocore/tianocore.github.io/wiki/HTTP-Boot

• Install required packages:

  sudo apt-get install build-essential uuid-dev iasl git nasm

• Clone git repository:

  mkdir ~/src
  cd ~/src
  git clone https://github.com/tianocore/edk2

• Compile build tools:

  cd ~/src/edk2
  make -C BaseTools
  . edksetup.sh

• Build the EDK II BaseTools:

  cd ..
  make -C edk2/BaseTools

• Setup build shell environment

  cd ~/src/edk2
  export EDK_TOOLS_PATH=$HOME/src/edk2/BaseTools
  . edksetup.sh BaseTools

• Modify config Conf/target.txt

  ACTIVE_PLATFORM       = OvmfPkg/OvmfPkgX64.dsc
  TARGET_ARCH           = X64
  TARGET                = NOOPT
  TOOL_CHAIN_TAG        = GCC5

• Enable HTTP boot in OvmfPkg/OvmfPkgX64.dsc

    DEFINE HTTP_BOOT_ENABLE        = TRUE

• Build:

  build

• After successful compilation, the binary can be found in ~/src/edk2/Build/OvmfX64/NOOPT_GCC5/FV/

  OVMF_CODE.fd     Binary
  OVMF_VARS.fd     Variable store

• Install qemu:

  sudo apt-get install qemu-system-x86

• Start VM with EFI firmware:

  qemu-system-x86_64 \
      -drive if=pflash,format=raw,readonly,file=OVMF_CODE.fd \
      -drive if=pflash,format=raw,file=OVMF_VARS.fd \
      -enable-kvm \
      -m 1G \
      -monitor stdio

Press ESC at the logo

Go to Boot Manager

Select UEFI HTTPv4