Re: [Etherboot-users] pxe boot ?

[Roy W. <roy...@ya...>]

Hello Cristian,

I wanted to try and get this sorted out once and for
all, I think I'm very close, so I'm going to go
through things simply and carefully, hopefully you can
see where I'm going wrong ?

> To boot a DOS image (let's say a floppy image) you
> can get away with PXE booting and pxelinux from
> Syslinux (syslinux.zytor.com). PXE booting
> loads pxelinux.0 that cand boot, via memdisk, a
> DOS floppy.

This I still cannot do. The documentation is difficult
but I'm close I think ...

> To boot a DOS image (let's say a floppy image) you >
can get away with PXE booting and pxelinux from
> Syslinux (syslinux.zytor.com). PXE booting loads
> pxelinux.0 that cand boot, via memdisk, a
> DOS floppy.

ok, that's clear, very clear, but *how* to implement
it is not completely clear to me. I'll explain :

Ok, as you say the 2 core files (along with a working
tftp server and dhcp server) to allow a boot are

> /tftpboot/pxelinux.0 
> /tftpboot/pxelinux.cfg/default

That's fine, and I see a boot happening across the
network but it cannot boot anything So on my Windows
box, I have the 2 files :

C:\tftpboot\pxelinux.0 
C:\tftpboot\pxelinux.cfg\default

and I am running tftpd32.exe allowing the pxe booting
to happen. I also have a simple dos 6.22 boot image

C:\tftpboot\dosboot.img

Now, you said the following :

> Files layout (on the tftp server, serves files from
/tftpboot, 
> stripping the directory prefix) :
> /tftpboot/pxelinux.0
> /tftpboot/pxelinux.cfg/default
> /tftpboot/menu.c32
> /tftpboot/freedos/odinBig.img

Stripping your pxelinux.cfg/default file just for the
dos boot, I get

<file>
default menu.c32
prompt 0
timeout 0

menu title pxelinux boot menu

label DOS 
        menu label DOS
        kernel ::/memdisk 
        append initrd=::/dosboot.img
</file>



Now, the missing bits ...

> menu.c32 is from Syslinux (please read the
> README.menu file to see how you can use it).

I read that, it's referencing all sorts of linux stuff
and doesn't seem to say how to build a menu.c32. there
is no default menu.c32 in the syslinux distribution,
could you let me see what is in your menu.c32 and I
will use that as an example to work from ?

Here is the output that I get when I network boot:

Found PXENV+ structure
PXE API version is 0063
Old PXE API detected, using PXENV+ structure
UNDI data segment at:   9880
UNDI data segment size: 5520
UNDI code segment at:   9DD2
UNDI code segment size: 1BD0
PXENV entry point found (we hope) at 9140:0092
My IP address seems to be 0A000032 10.0.0.50
ip=10.0.0.50:10.0.0.10:10.0.0.1:255.255.255.0
TFTP prefix:
Trying to load: pxelinux.cfg/01-00-00-0e-b0-a0-70
Trying to load: pxelinux.cfg/0A000032
Trying to load: pxelinux.cfg/0A00003
Trying to load: pxelinux.cfg/0A0000
Trying to load: pxelinux.cfg/0A000
Trying to load: pxelinux.cfg/0A0
Trying to load: pxelinux.cfg/0A
Trying to load: pxelinux.cfg/0
Trying to load: pxelinux.cfg/default
Could not find kernel image: linux
boot:

ok, end result of the above, my main problems are :

- something is missing, but what ? is memlinux working
??? is the menu.c32 essential, and can I see a very
basic menu.c32 please ???

> When booting and Pxelinux is loaded, I get to
> this menu:
> 
http://img355.imageshack.us/my.php?image=pxelinux6cu.png

That looks great, and if I ever see something like
that then I will be very happy !

> I know the lack of precise documentation can be
> sometimes disconcerting, but you'll get there :). 

Well, hopefully today with some luck ! :) :) :)

(I tell you, that online documentation is hell, this
should be 5 minutes to setup, not 5 months ! You've
given me great descriptions that have got me this far,
but that huge confusing online documentation is like
being forced to eat nails for a few hours ... examples
examples examples, that's all that they really need to
do, but instead of good clear examples, they've
written the documentation like blueprints for the
Space Shuttle ... inscrutable !)

Cheers!,

Roy.


		
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