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

[Boris Lenzinger]

Hi Tim,

here is a mail from the mailing list that should answer to your question
(answer is from hpa as you can see):

Subject: CDROM Booting
> Hello,
> Hope someone can help.
>
> I am currently using memdisk to boot DOS and other floppy images over
the network and it works great. The question I have is can we do the
same thing with an CD ISO image? Is there a software or a configuration
that would permit me to load the ISO image in RAM over the network and
start the install of the CD?
>

This is an FAQ.

The answer is no, because ALL operating systems that boot from CD images
want to talk to the hardware directly.

    -hpa


Tim Harvey wrote:

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

> 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
>

_______________________________________________
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.



>_______________________________________________
>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.