[syslinux] memdisk : booting OpenBSD and NetBSD

Kasper Fock kasper at easyspeedy.com
Mon Apr 19 15:21:15 PDT 2004


Hi.
I had managed to boot the freebsd boot.flp as described, but i also want to be 
able to install it. Does anyone know how to make an unattended install of 
freebsd using this method (pxelinux, memdisk and boot.flp). I have read 
something about an install.cfg file  but is it possible to get the 
installation to look for this file ie, on a ftp/tftp server?

I wold really like to use pxelinux instead of pxeboot (bsd pxeloader) while i 
want to install a mixture of *bsd and unix 

thanks in advantage
/Kasper

On Monday 05 April 2004 23:20, Benjamin Pineau wrote:
> hi there.
>
> I'm trying to boot several OSes floppy images from a cdrom via memdisk.
>
> Actually, Linux and FreeBSD boots fine, but, while i'm using the same
> method, I couldn't get into booting netbsd nor openbsd.
>
> The boot process seems to hang up, in those two cases, when the second
> stage native bootloader try to load the kernel (i'm not absolutely sure
> about this). The native first stage bootloader works fine in both case.
>
> So I supect a bug in memdisk (well, something that makes it differs from a
> bios in the os viewpoint, shouldn't happen...).
>
> I use the standard netbsd's 'rescue-tiny.fs' floppy image (you can try it
> at:
> ftp://ftp.netbsd.org/pub/NetBSD/NetBSD-1.6.2/i386/installation/floppy/rescu
>e-tiny.fs) and the standard openbsd's 'floppy35.fs' image from
> ftp://ftp.openbsd.org/pub/OpenBSD/snapshots/i386/floppy35.fs
> Both boots fine when they're loaded straigth from the bios (eg: when
> installed on a floppy without syslinux/memdisk and booted from there).
> Tried with two differents bios. I also tried with different floppy and hard
> drive images.
>
> Here, more infos:
> ------------- menu.lst -------------------
> #I use grub to load memdisk
> title FreeBSD rescue disk (works fine)
> kernel /boot/memdisk
> initrd=/boot/boot.flp
> title OpenBSD rescue disk (not yet functional)
> kernel /boot/memdisk
> initrd=/boot/floppy35.fs
> title NetBSD rescue disk (not yet functional)
> kernel /boot/memdisk
> initrd=/boot/rescue-tiny.fs
> -------------------------------------------
> note: following outputs copied by hand, hope without errors
>
> ------------ sample output, netbsd: -------
> [...]
> INT 13 08: Success, count = 2 BPT = 0000:0000
> old: int13 = ec6a40bd int15 = f000f859
> new: int13 = 9f000008 int15 = 9f00027c
> Loading boot sectore... booting...
>
>  >> NetBSD/i386 BIOS Boot, Revision 2.13
>  >> (autobuild at tgm.netbsd.org, Tue Feb 10 21:25:10 UTC 2004)
>  >> Memory: 636/127776 k
>
>  Press return to boot now, any other key for boot menu
>  booting hd0a:netbsd - starting in 0
>  978496-
> -------------------------------------------
>
> The 'starting in 0' is just a counter that decrease from 5 to 0 seconds.
> The '978496' is a sort of counter (dunno what) that grows when (i thing)
> the NetBSD  kernel is loaded. Everything freezes here, I don't know if
> it's while loading the kernel in memory, or while trying to amorce it or
> something else...
>
>
> -------------------------------------------
> - sample output, openbsd:
> [...]
> command line: mem=131072K
> Disk is floppy, 1440 k, C/H/S = 80/2/18
> Total size needed = 1509 bytes, allocating 2k
> Old dos memory at 0x9f800 (map says 0x9f800), loading at 0x9f000
> 1588: 0xffff 15E801: 0x3c00 0x06d8
> INT 13 08: Success, count = 2 BPT = f000:85d0
> old: int13 = ec6a40bd int15 = f000f859
> new: int13 = 9f000008 int15 = 9f00027c
> Loading boot sector... booting...
>
>   Loading;...........
>   probing: pc0 com0 com1 apm mem[632k 124M 1024k a20=on]
>   disk: fd0 fd1 hd0+*
>
>   >> OpenBSD/i386 BOOT 2.06
>
>   boot>
>   booting fd0a:/bsd: 3281040_
>
> -------------------------------------------
>
> Then it freezes (the ' booting fd0a:/bsd' indicates that we are actually
> loading the openbsd kernel). In normal case, the output should seems like:
> this: "booting hd0a:/bsd 4464500+838332 [58+204240+181750]=0x56cfd0".
>
> Running on vmware, I got this at this point (only with openbsd, not
> netbsd):
>
> *** Virtual machine kernel stack fault (hardware reset) ***
> The virtual machine just suffered a stack fault in kernel mode. On a real
> computer, this would amount to a reset of the processor. It can be caused
> by an incorrect configuration of the virtual machine, a bug in the
> operating system, or a problem in the VMware Workstation software. Press OK
> to reboot virtual machine or Cancel to shut it down.
>
>
> The openbsd boot process is described here:
> http://www.openbsd.org/faq/faq14.html#Boot386
> and there:
> http://www.openbsd.org/cgi-bin/man.cgi?query=boot&sektion=8&arch=i386&aprop
>os=0&manpath=OpenBSD+Current
>
> Does anyone there have an idea about booting one of thoses os from memdisk
> ? or an idea of the reason that make it so difficult ?
>
>
>
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-- 
Kasper Fock
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