[syslinux] Re: Stumped

[Peter Caldes]

syslinux-request at zytor.com wrote:

> Message: 1
> Date: Thu, 06 Nov 2003 14:37:20 -0700
> From: Erik Williamson <erik at cpsc.ucalgary.ca>
> Subject: [syslinux] Stumped
> To: syslinux at zytor.com
> Message-ID: <3FAABF10.5020006 at cpsc.ucalgary.ca>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed
>
> Hi All,
>
> I tried combing through the archives, but I think that I just went
> mental.  We're trying to set up a pxe server here using syslinux 2.0.6,
> and here's what we've got:
>
> client sends bootp request
> receives ip, server to go to and file to fetch.
> fetches and executes pxelinux.0
> fetches pxelinux.cfg/default
> fetches display.msg (defined in default)
> displays the text - but when I type in an option & hit return, nothing
> happens.
>
> We've watched the wire, but nothing leaves the box at this point.
> please let me know what I can post to help explain more.
>
> Thanks so much for any help!
> e.
>
> --
> e r i k   w i l l i a m s o n                     erik at cpsc.ucalgary.ca
>   system admin . department of computer science . university of calgary

I too have this problem (2.0.6) where you get the 'boot:' prompt, you type
the label of the kernel you want to use and when you hit 'ENTER' nothing
happens.

If you don't type an option/label and hit ENTER, it boots the default
image.
However I have found if that you do NOT hit enter relatively quickly after
you see the boot: prompt, then nothing happens and you can't even get the
default image to boot.

My hardware is a blade server which has NO video card. Just a serial port.
The BIOS on my server does console redirection to the serial port and stops
the console redirection as soon as the OS starts running. I have noticed
that console redirection is still active while pxelinux.0 is running while
it displays the boot: prompt. You can tell redirection is active because it
constantly refreshes the ENTIRE screen which is verry slow at 9600 :-(

I had a 'SERIAL' option defined in my PXELINUX config file and at first I
thought PXELINUX was getting confused because it was trying to access both
the serial port AND the console but the console was really being mapped by
the BIOS to the serial port. However I still had the problem when I
commented out the SERIAL option.

I haven't had time to try any other version of PXELINUX to see if something
else works.

To the developers: Please let me know what I can provide you to help debug
this.