[syslinux] PXELinux

[Cristi Mitrana]

On Tue, 22 Feb 2005 14:24:43 -0800, Richard Whittaker
<RWHITTAKER at nwtel.ca> wrote:
> Greetings:
> 
> I'm hoping PXE linux can help me with my problem...
> 
> I'm trying to setup a PXE based install server under Linux that can
> host Linux (SLES9, Slackware) and Windows (NT4, 2000, XP, 2K3) Install
> images. I would ideally like to be able to have a PXE compliant host
> boot, and prompt me to pick an image to boot. Has anyone ever done this
> before?.. I have ISO images stored on the server, but this might not be
> what I need, and I'm a little hazy on what my next step is... I have
> PXELINUX booting, and prompting me with a boot: prompt, but as to what
> to do next, I'm lost... Any pracitcal examples that someone could share
> would be MUCH appreciated...

 I do that, although only for linux and using a diffrent approach. The
idea is the
same though, you could use the simple menu that is implemented in the latest
syslinux release and customize your configuration for pxelinux. 

E.g [pxelinux.cfg/default]:

DEFAULT menus/menu.c32
PROMPT 0
TIMEOUT 0

MENU TITLE Net Boot

LABEL rip_install
        MENU LABEL Install via LTSP (image no. 1)
        KERNEL 192.168.1.5::/rip/vmlinuz.rip
        APPEND initrd=192.168.1.5:/rip/initrd.rip IMAGE=lstp_install_1
quiet init=/linuxrc root=/dev/ram0 rw

LABEL rip_install_2
        MENU LABEL Install via LTSP (image no. 2)
        KERNEL 192.168.1.5::/rip/vmlinuz.rip
        APPEND initrd=192.168.1.5::/rip/initrd.gz IMAGE=ltsp_install_2
quiet init=/linuxrc  root=/dev/ram0 rw


[ -- end pxelinux.cfg/default ]

 I use a customized LTSP kernel & initrd to start a minimal system and
then install
using some scripts I made (for hdd partitioning, formatting and
restoring of the
files in partitions)  because I have identical (hardware wise) system
to install
and it's faster and easier this way.
 
 Btw, It seems that in the latest (pre8) syslinux specifying the
initrd path with '::' seems not to work, pxelinux tries to get the
initrd starting from the pxelinux.0 directory.


hth,

mitu