[syslinux] Can I use pxelinux to boot a cdrom image or isolinux from pxe?

[Tim Harvey]

--- Geert Stappers <stappers at stappers.nl> wrote:

> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
> 
> On Mon, Jun 13, 2005 at 09:10:04PM -0700, Tim Harvey wrote:
> > Greetings,
> > 
> > I've been a user and fan of SYSLINUX for a couple of years now.  I use
> PXELINUX
> > for a PXE server.  I've only been able to boot linux kernel/initrd images
> and
> > dos bootdisks, however now I'm wanting to create a boot image for the
> 'Rescue
> > Is Possible' (RIP) linux recovery disk -
> > http://www.tux.org/pub/people/kent-robotti/looplinux/rip/
> > 
> > Previous versions came with a kernel and initrd that could be used with PXE
> but
> > the latest version instead comes as an ISO image which uses syslinux which
> > raises a couple of questions:
> > 
> > 1) Is there some way I can use pxelinux/memdisk to boot a generic bootable
> ISO
> > image?
> > 
> > 2) Is there some way that I can 'chain load' the syslinux on this ISO image
> > from my pxelinux?
> > 
> > Thanks for any advise,
> 
> Qeustions like these, have been posted before on this mailinglist.
> I can't recall that I have seen a "Here is a How To" message,
> so it doesn't make sense to redirect to the archive of this mailinglist.
> 

I figured this might have been an FAQ but I couldn't find anything by googling
it... perhaps I didn't know what to search for.  I also don't really understand
how to 'search the archive' as its broken into 1 archive per month and has no
search that I can find - http://syslinux.zytor.com/archives/

> Back to the questions. I wonder why you want to solve it at the "client
> side". The previous version of RIP provided a nice "server side" setup.
> What about taking the usefull parts from the RIP ISO and putting them
> on the server where you add the PXELINUX stuff?
> 

In this specific case, I should be able to do what your suggesting but in the
more general case I'm curious if there is a way to take any old bootable CDRom
and use it via PXE.  There are more and more bootable CDRom's out there for
things such as rescue disks and live linux distros vs boot floppies.

In this specific case, I'm not exactly sure how to take the images on the RIP
12.4 ISO and use them for PXELINUX.  Here is what the tree looks like:
  boot/
    grub/
       iso9660_stage1_5
       menu.lst
       menu.lst.serial
       stage1
       stage2
    initrd.gz
    kernel
    loadlin.exe
    memtest.bin
    rootfs.tgz
    syslinux.com
    syslinux.bin

When I noticed the 'syslinux.com' and 'syslinux.bin' I wondered if there was
simply a way to 'chain' the bootloader something like this (I tried, and
couldn't get it to work)

label rip12.4
   kernel rip/syslinux.bin

Or, noticing the files: kernel, initrd.gz, rootfs.tgz I figured I could do
something like:

label rip12.4
   kernel rip/kernel
   append initrd=rip/initrd.gz root=rip/rootfs.tgz

but that didn't work either, most likely because I don't have the correct
kernel params.

Thanks,

Tim

> > 
> > Tim
> 
> 
> Cheers
> Geert Stappers
> 
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
> Version: GnuPG v1.2.4 (GNU/Linux)
> 
> iD8DBQFCro+HOSINbgwa/7sRAqEBAJ95O4wpnrmT2QiOWL81q2IHIOyRIwCeMts7
> Da+ZXdg6SLupR1PmYDG+TWI=
> =3JW8
> -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
> 
> _______________________________________________
> SYSLINUX mailing list
> Submissions to SYSLINUX at zytor.com
> Unsubscribe or set options at:
> http://www.zytor.com/mailman/listinfo/syslinux
> Please do not send private replies to mailing list traffic.
> 
>