[syslinux] ipappend in pxelinux

[Joe Patterson]

I've just gotten pxelinux working (very cool) to boot a Dell PowerEdge.

Everything is great, except for one bit.  I turned on the IPAPPEND option,
and when the machine boots (configured for nfs-root, IP kernel-level
autoconf with no options) it says:  "ip-config: incomplete network
configuration information".

According to the syslinux.doc file, the ipappend option appends a line to
the kernel command line similar to:

ip=<client-ip>:<boot-server-ip>:<gw-ip>:<netmask>

According to /usr/src/linux/Documentation/nfsroot.txt, the option should
look like:

ip=<client-ip>:<server-ip>:<gw-ip>:<netmask>:<hostname>:<device>:<autoconf>

(this is for linux 2.4.13)

If I manually add the above to an APPEND line, it boots like a champ.  But
I'd like to have it work automagically.

Is this due to a change in how the linux kernel ip autoconf works, or am I
completely missing something?  Is there an easy way to change that to be
more like:

ip=<client-ip>:<boot-server-ip>:<gw-ip>:<netmask>:::off

or even

ip=<client-ip>:<boot-server-ip>:<gw-ip>:<netmask>::eth0:off

?

Thanks,

-Joe Patterson, CCNP, CISSP
Senior Security Engineer
The Asgard Group
(954)343-4370 x102
jpatterson at asgardgroup.com