[syslinux] Intel Boot Agent 4.0.19

[H. Peter Anvin]

Keith Josephson wrote:
> First, THANKS!  The SYSLINUX/PXELINUX s/w and docs are great.  I have
> been able to set up a working server for PXE boot in very little time,
> using our existing Win2k DHCP server and a Red Hat 7.2 Linux server for
> tftp, etc...  It took very little time (compared to an earlier effort 4
> months ago.....) and the pxelinux/menu/memdisk environment is great for us.
>  
> The environment seems to support PXE clients up to and including Intel
> Boot Agent 4.0.17.  But most of the new systems we are getting use IBA
> 4.0.19 .  On any of the older clients, i can see the atftpd action in
> /var/log/messages - pxelinux.0 goes out, it asks for
> pxelinux.cfg/xxxxxxxx....pxelinux.cfg/x, then pxelinux.cfg/default. 
> Then I can see the display file specified there go out.  Finally I see
> memdisk and an image .  Perfect.  But with the 4.0.19 client, I see
> pxelinux.0 go out.  Then atftpd says it serving   - nothing.  Which of
> course, fails - it retries 4 times, and gives up.  The server is still
> OK, older clients can continue to connect.  But the 4.0.19 client just
> sits there.....  (It has, at that point displayed the IP parameters it
> got from DHCP, it displays TFTP, which then gets erased, and then
> nothing further happens.)
>  
> My guess is that nothing is wrong with pxelinux, but rather that intel
> now requires more info from DHCP or something.  Nice of them to break a
> working solution....  But I am hoping that you have at least come across
> this issue and have found a solution.  Intel is usually pretty good at
> documenting revisions, but I haven't found that for IBA.  Maybe you have
> and know the answer.
>  

First of all, have you complained to Intel?  Seriously, if people don't
complain, vendors will continue their "if it works on M$, ship it" type
behaviour which seems to have become the standard in the firmware
industry over the last few years.

Second, please don't post HTML to this list.

	-hpa