CentOS - Mar 2017 - PXE vmlinuz kernel doesn't recognize memory in Intel NUC?

Hello all!  I'm hoping someone can help.  I'm having 2 issues; first:

When trying to load a CentOS LiveCD via PXE on an Intel NUC (NUC6CAY), I
get:
"Not enough memory to load specified image".  The image is 1.1 gigs,
and
there is 16 gigs of memory in the NUC.

To combat this, I found this forum post
<https://www.centos.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=1398> which suggested using
the "mem=" kernel parameter to manually set it.

The next problem I get is one of two things:

On a normal working system, I get the dots loading in PXE, then it freezes
on "ready." forever
On the NUC, I get a sqaushfs crash saying that the image is unusable.

My questions are:

Has anyone successfully used the "mem=" parameter in a PXE
environment?
I wasn't even aware that drivers were necessary for a kernel image to read
RAM; I'd thought this was something that was just inherent.  Does the
CentOS PXE kernel need to be updated?

On 03/15/2017 06:08 PM, Locane wrote:
> Hello all!  I'm hoping someone can help.  I'm having 2 issues;
first:
>
> When trying to load a CentOS LiveCD via PXE on an Intel NUC (NUC6CAY), I
> get:
> "Not enough memory to load specified image".  The image is 1.1
gigs, and
> there is 16 gigs of memory in the NUC.
>
> To combat this, I found this forum post
> <https://www.centos.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=1398> which suggested
using
> the "mem=" kernel parameter to manually set it.
>
> The next problem I get is one of two things:
>
> On a normal working system, I get the dots loading in PXE, then it freezes
> on "ready." forever
> On the NUC, I get a sqaushfs crash saying that the image is unusable.
>
> My questions are:
>
> Has anyone successfully used the "mem=" parameter in a PXE
environment?
> I wasn't even aware that drivers were necessary for a kernel image to
read
> RAM; I'd thought this was something that was just inherent.  Does the
> CentOS PXE kernel need to be updated?
> _______________________________________________
> CentOS mailing list
> CentOS at centos.org
> https://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
>
I do a lot of PXE at home.  Is it possible the tftp of the image is failing
somehow?  I had problems with image size and had to switch to:

http://www.kernel.org/pub/software/network/tftp/

found in tftp-server

I've included my pxelinux.cfg/default for Centos 6.4 below:

# Centos 6.4
   label centos6
   kernel centos/6.4/64/vmlinuz
   append initrd=centos/6.4/64/initrd.img ramdisk_size=100000 text
ks=http://192.168.0.134/ks/ks6-64.cfg

Bruce, thanks for the reply - I don't think so.  The image works fine on
every other supermicro server we've ever used, and continues to do so,
except for the NUC.

Using the mem= kernel parameter gets the NUC further in the boot process,
but then it complains about the squashfs error (for the same working image
everywhere else).  The mem= kernel parameter also breaks other
normally-working systems, so that's why I'm trying to either:

1. Fix the mem= kernel parameter, somehow
or
2. Get the vmlinuz initial kernel to recognize the memory in the NUC,
somehow

On Wed, Mar 15, 2017 at 10:26 PM, Bruce Ferrell <bferrell at baywinds.org>
wrote:
> On 03/15/2017 06:08 PM, Locane wrote:
>
>> Hello all!  I'm hoping someone can help.  I'm having 2 issues;
first:
>>
>> When trying to load a CentOS LiveCD via PXE on an Intel NUC (NUC6CAY),
I
>> get:
>> "Not enough memory to load specified image".  The image is
1.1 gigs, and
>> there is 16 gigs of memory in the NUC.
>>
>> To combat this, I found this forum post
>> <https://www.centos.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=1398> which
suggested
>> using
>> the "mem=" kernel parameter to manually set it.
>>
>> The next problem I get is one of two things:
>>
>> On a normal working system, I get the dots loading in PXE, then it
freezes
>> on "ready." forever
>> On the NUC, I get a sqaushfs crash saying that the image is unusable.
>>
>> My questions are:
>>
>> Has anyone successfully used the "mem=" parameter in a PXE
environment?
>> I wasn't even aware that drivers were necessary for a kernel image
to read
>> RAM; I'd thought this was something that was just inherent.  Does
the
>> CentOS PXE kernel need to be updated?
>> _______________________________________________
>> CentOS mailing list
>> CentOS at centos.org
>> https://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
>>
>> I do a lot of PXE at home.  Is it possible the tftp of the image is
> failing somehow?  I had problems with image size and had to switch to:
>
> http://www.kernel.org/pub/software/network/tftp/
>
> found in tftp-server
>
> I've included my pxelinux.cfg/default for Centos 6.4 below:
>
> # Centos 6.4
>   label centos6
>   kernel centos/6.4/64/vmlinuz
>   append initrd=centos/6.4/64/initrd.img ramdisk_size=100000 text ks>
http://192.168.0.134/ks/ks6-64.cfg
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> CentOS mailing list
> CentOS at centos.org
> https://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
>

On 3/15/2017 6:08 PM, Locane wrote:
> Hello all!  I'm hoping someone can help.  I'm having 2 issues;
first:
>
> When trying to load a CentOS LiveCD via PXE on an Intel NUC (NUC6CAY), I
> get:
> "Not enough memory to load specified image".  The image is 1.1
gigs, and
> there is 16 gigs of memory in the NUC.
that NUC uses a Celeron J3455 "Apollo Lake" system-on-a-chip, all new
in
Q3 2016...  I wonder if that's supported by the version (unspecified) of 
CentOS you're installing ?  You may need a newer kernel... The Apollo 
Lake is an extension of Skylake, which is generation 6 of the Core 
I3/5/7 series.


-- 
john r pierce, recycling bits in santa cruz

Hey John, thanks - it's CentOS 7.3.

I was just looking at "newer" vmlinuz kernels; I was going to try
scraping
one out of Ubuntu or Fedora.

On Fri, Mar 17, 2017 at 10:54 AM, John R Pierce <pierce at hogranch.com>
wrote:
> On 3/15/2017 6:08 PM, Locane wrote:
>
>> Hello all!  I'm hoping someone can help.  I'm having 2 issues;
first:
>>
>> When trying to load a CentOS LiveCD via PXE on an Intel NUC (NUC6CAY),
I
>> get:
>> "Not enough memory to load specified image".  The image is
1.1 gigs, and
>> there is 16 gigs of memory in the NUC.
>>
>
> that NUC uses a Celeron J3455 "Apollo Lake" system-on-a-chip, all
new in
> Q3 2016...  I wonder if that's supported by the version (unspecified)
of
> CentOS you're installing ?  You may need a newer kernel... The Apollo
Lake
> is an extension of Skylake, which is generation 6 of the Core I3/5/7
series.
>
>
> --
> john r pierce, recycling bits in santa cruz
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> CentOS mailing list
> CentOS at centos.org
> https://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
>