[int13con] Preserve all registers across real-mode calls

The BIOS on some older AWS instance types (observed with c3.large in
eu-central-1) does not correctly preserve the upper halves of the
32-bit general-purpose registers.  In particular, calling INT13,42 or
INT13,43 will zero the high half of %ebx.  If the compiled code has a
live value in %ebx then this will result in undefined behaviour.

The defect appears to be AWS-specific: it does not exist in the
upstream Bochs BIOS code from which this BIOS is derived.

The iPXE disk log console is not performance-sensitive but must be as
reliable as possible, since it exists to be the debug log mechanism of
last resort.  We therefore choose the path of maximum paranoia: we
work around this and other potential BIOS bugs by preserving all
non-output registers across all real-mode calls.

Signed-off-by: Michael Brown <mcb30@ipxe.org>
1 file changed
tree: ff3ea794ee86a3acd4cdd94924bcd1ac9fffcb79
  1. .claude/
  2. .github/
  3. contrib/
  4. src/
  5. AGENTS.md
  6. CHANGELOG.md
  7. CLAUDE.md
  8. CONTRIBUTING.md
  9. COPYING
  10. COPYING.GPLv2
  11. COPYING.UBDL
  12. README.md
  13. RELEASE.md
  14. RELNOTES.tmpl.md
  15. SECURITY.md
README.md

iPXE network bootloader

Build Coverity Release

iPXE is the leading open source network boot firmware. It provides a full PXE implementation enhanced with additional features such as:

  • boot from a web server via HTTP or HTTPS,

  • boot from an iSCSI, FCoE, or AoE SAN,

  • control the boot process with a script,

  • create interactive forms and menus.

You can use iPXE to replace the existing PXE ROM on your network card, or you can chainload into iPXE to obtain the features of iPXE without the hassle of reflashing.

iPXE is free, open-source software licensed under the GNU GPL (with some portions under GPL-compatible licences).

You can download the rolling release binaries (built from the latest commit), or use the most recent stable release.

For full documentation, visit the iPXE website.