[syslinux] PXE-Linux: password protected menus?

[Gebhardt Thomas]

Hi,

has anyone ever tried (or thought of) implementing some kind
of password protected menu entries? Like:

__MENU__
* Boot from local disk
* Boot remote image
* Install Linux to local disk (Password required!)
* Test Hardware (Password required!)

Yes, I know that this is not a trivial task. There are several
competing design goals:

1. The password should be required as soon as possible
  in the boot pocess.
2. The password should not be hardcoded in the code
3. Ideally there should be a username/password authentication
 to an external server (ldap?)
4. Remote logging would be fine

As far as I can see, it would be the best to insert a chain boot
image that does the authentication and then boots the images
which actually does the work.

Any ideas?

Thanks, Thomas