[syslinux] gpxelinux.0 and slow HTTP performance on VMware ESX VM

[H. Peter Anvin]

On 06/30/2011 10:33 AM, syslinux at schlomo.schapiro.org wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> Am 30.06.2011 19:15, schrieb Andrew Stuart:
>> Did you try the above without gPXE/gpxelinux.0 ? Your logs indicate you
>> are still using gPXE. It's my understanding that a wrapper is not needed
>> for 4.10 since it has native http (I haven't had the chance to
>> personally try it).
> 
> Yes of course. The access log shows 2 boot attempts. The first one with
> gpxelinux.0 4.04 (to show that it worked) and the 2nd one with
> pxelinux.0 4.10
> 
>> If for some reason you do need gPXE, I might suggest you try
>> www.ipxe.org as gPXE is 'dead', ipxe was forked, and is actively being
>> contributed to and maintained. Many issues with gPXE have been corrected
>> in iPXE.
> 
> Thanks, I was not aware of this fork. Are there any plans to build an
> ipxelinux.0 that is based on ipxe?
> 

We'll either switch to iPXE or drop this option... it's not clear to me
it's needed anymore.  I was hoping for a formal release of iPXE first,
but I'm not sure that will happen.

>> Lastly, Trolling these lists [syslinux|ipxe] I have seen mention that
>> vmware's pxe stack leaves a lot to be desired. I know from personal
>> experience with Workstation [6|7], and esxi [3|4] that pxe booting is
>> slightly slower then real hardware, but it's been 'fast enough' that I
>> haven't tried to look into it further.
> 
>> As a curious side thought, I wonder if anyone has tried to replace
>> vmwares pxe option rom with gPXE/iPXE...
> 
> Good idea, do you know how to do that for hundreds of VMs and
> automatically have it done for new VMs?

	-hpa