Re: [Etherboot-users] pxelinux.0: not a valid image

[Alexander H. <mai...@gm...>]

>    I have a cluster that I am booting via Etherboot. The nodes have no
> CD-Rom or Floppy, so a network install is the only way to get an OS onto
> the nodes. From what I have read, the basic operation of Etheboot and
> PXE is that etherboot boots, gets a dhcp address, gets pxelinux.0 from
> the tftp server, boots the pxelinux.0 file and then reads the contents
> of ./pxelinux in the tftp root to get menu options. If this is not the
> case, please correct me on how etherboot really works.

the configuration file has to be in the sub-directory pxelinux.cfg. its 
name is default (that is the most common configuration). see pxelinux 
docs for details

> I don't know what options Etherboot was compiled with because it is
> burned into a LinuxBOIS rom on each node. The version line when it boots 
> is:
>    Etherboot 5.0.4eb4.1 (GPL) Tagged ELF (Multiboot) for [EEPRO100]
> So, is there a way I can force pxe booting over elf through a dhcp
> option or something?

pxelinux is a PXE Image. PXE images only work with Etherboot versions >= 
5.3.7

So upgrade to a new Etherboot version (e.g. via Chain-Loading).
Your dhcpd.conf should look like this:

if substring (option vendor-class-identifier, 0, 13) = "Etherboot-5.0" {
   filename "/tftpboot/rtl8139-eb54.nbi";
}
else {
   filename "/tftpboot/pxelinux.0";
}

create the .nbi file with:
mknbi --format=nbi --target=rom --output=rtl8139-eb54.nbi rtl8139.rom

Cheers
Alex