[syslinux] kernel and initrd

Steve Glines sglines at is-cs.com
Tue May 18 13:37:59 PDT 2004


The situation is this. The client has asked me to create this lab using
a special card that they have that acts like a remote console. It allows 
a remote user to boot from their local floppy or a pseudo floppy (stored 
elsewhere) - there is no provision for a CD or changing pseudo floppies. 
The goal is to simulate an install via CD rom.

As far as I know all of the target machines will (these are different
from what I'm developing on) have 3c509 cards without a PXE rom so I
still need to boot off a floppy.

I once had a floppy (I can't find it now that I need it) that booted a
remote version of Red Hat's anaconda. It was a pure syslinux
implementation that installed the right net driver, did a dhcp request,
then prompted you for the URL of an anaconda implementation which I
think ftp'd the code into a ramdisk and installed Red Hat from there.

I'm trying to do the same thing but make it more generic. I just wish I
knew where that floppy was so that I could reverse engineer it.

Your idea of pxelinux is a good one. I didn't see a way to boot
etherboot from a floppy - am I wrong here? Can I use the zdisk the same
way I would use a vmlinuz?

Cheers
Steve



H. Peter Anvin wrote:
> Steve Glines wrote:
> 
>> What I have been asked to do is build a learning lab that will
>> install 3 different flavors of Linux on demand. That's why I need
>> syslinux and not etherboot. I need the menuing capability which
>> wetherboot doesn't appear to have.
>> 
> 
> Use Etherboot (or, if your network card have them, the existing PXE 
> ROMs) strictly as a PXE driver and use it to boot PXELINUX.  Then you
>  can use all the menuing available in PXELINUX.
> 
> Either that, or you'll probably need a higher capacity medium like a
>  CD-ROM.
> 
> -hpa
> 

-- 
Steve Glines
voice: 978-952-6340         www.is-cs.com
   fax: 978-952-8524         145 Foster Street
  cell: 617-549-7274         Littleton MA 01460

I'm a complex person. I have a real and an imaginary part.






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