LP1988340: efi-pxeboot test marks HTTP boot as failure

[beliaev-maksim]

This issue was migrated from https://bugs.launchpad.net/plainbox-provider-checkbox/+bug/1988340

Summary

Status	Created on	Heat	Importance	Security related
New	2022-08-31 18:53:58	6	Low	False

Description

The efi-pxeboot.py test script looks for keywords like "PXE" and "Network" in the boot order strings to determine whether the machine booted from hard disk or network. I originally thought the following submission showed a false alarm failure because the machine booted via HTTP rather than PXE:

https://certification.canonical.com/hardware/202007-28031/submission/278208/

On closer examination, the machine booted from hard disk, but has an HTTP-boot option that should have been used but wasn't. The description includes the string "Network", which is searched for, so it SHOULD work; however, adding "HTTP" to the searched-for keywords would be worthwhile.

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Thank you for reporting us your feedback!

The internal ticket has been created: https://warthogs.atlassian.net/browse/CHECKBOX-1183.

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[rodwsmith]

This doesn't look like a bug to me. The test output summarizes it pretty well, I think:

The current boot item is 0000
The first BootOrder item is 0009
The description of Boot0000 is 'ubuntu HD(1,GPT,5db5408f-5072-4597-a8fb-509ec4081ef8,0x800,0x100000)/File(\EFI\UBUNTU\SHIMX64.EFI)'
The description of Boot0009 is 'UEFI: Slot6 Port0 HTTP IPv4 Intel(R) Ethernet Network Adapter X710-2 for OCP NIC 3.0 PciRoot(0x3)/Pci(0x3,0x3)/Pci(0x0,0x0)/MAC(6805cab1ac7c,1)/IPv4(0.0.0.00.0.0.0,0,0)/Uri()..BO'
WARNING: The system is booted using Boot0000, but the first
boot item is Boot0009!
FAIL: The system has booted directly from the hard disk!

In other words, the EFI boot order specifies that Boot0009 (to boot using HTTP/network) should be used; however, the machine actually booted using Boot0000 (a boot from the hard disk). Note that the test, by explicit intent, tests how the machine actually booted, not how the machine is configured to boot. Chances are something went wrong with the HTTP/network boot. The test should fail in this case, and did. Further hands-on debugging is necessary to determine why the HTTP/network boot failed -- checking log files and/or monitoring the boot process via a (possibly remote) console, for instance.

All that said, the string "HTTP" could be added to the search strings in efi-pxeboot.py. Doing so would not affect the results in this case, though, since the strings "Ethernet" and "Network" both already correctly match. I'm reluctant to add more keywords that match the network-boot case because every additional matching keyword poses a risk of an incorrect match -- if a system has a disk-boot option with a description with a network-matching keyword, then the script may incorrectly classify a disk-booted system as having booted from the network. The risk of this happening with "HTTP", or any of the other six existing keywords, is low, particularly from a stock Ubuntu boot loader installation; but I'd prefer to keep this list as short as possible. I have yet to encounter a system in which "HTTP" is present without any of the other six keywords, so in the absence of such a case, my preference is to keep "HTTP" out of the list.

[kissiel]

Fantastic explanation, thank you very much!
With all of that in mind, indeed it looks like the current situation is the preferred one.

Closing the bug.