[syslinux] KEEPPXE/DOS

Peter.Leenders at computacenter.com Peter.Leenders at computacenter.com
Tue Dec 18 00:56:30 PST 2007



Hello Jonathan,

what is your problem? As far as I suspect, you want to start via Ghost
under DOS with networksupport to store image files on the network.

A normal diskette may to small to get all your software on it. there
are to solutions to this:
  * A simple solution will be to extend with winimage a pxe bootfloppy
    from 1.4MB to 2.8MB and copy the ghost files to the bootimage. You
    can use your normal bootfloppy as base for this (and do not use the
    keeppxe option).
  * The other solution will be to start ghost directly from the network
    - you may need it anyway to store your image files

For multiple networkcard support under dos there are a lot of different
solutions, e.g. these 3 ones:
   * If you want to autodetect your network card you can use tools like
     nicfind from Shane Kent you just have to evaluate the %nicnum%
     variable after starting nicfind.

   * or use as a complete solution barts network  bootdisk (based on the
     modboot disk - a tricky solution).

   These two solutions have to be adept to every different nic you use
   and dos drivers must exist (not for e.gsome sis-nics). Also there are
   some nics with bootix firmware that crash the nicfind autodection
   (don't if this also occurs with barts network bootdisk).

   * The third solution will be to use the keeppxe option. This solution
     has the charm that  your boot disk will get hardware independent
     (if this leaves enought lower dos memory for ghost). Undi drivers
     are only availible for MS-Net clients, other solutions like netware
     clients are tricky but possible (you have to use shims for this).


Remark:
Keep in mind that, if you use himem in config.sys, that the testmem option
is set to off (otherwise your bootimage in memory may be corrupted by
himem).

Links:
Bart'sNetwork bootdisk from Bart Lagerweij:
   http://www.nu2.nu/bootdisk/network/
   http://www.nu2.nu/bootdisk/modboot/
   http://www.nu2.nu/bootdisk/network/makedisk-old/

Nicfind from Shane Kent:

http://www.pcworld.com/downloads/file/fid,60471-order,3-page,1-c,lanutilities/description.html



Peter Leenders


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             Jonathan Hurd                                                 
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Has anyone gotten this to work? Loading the PXE UNDI driver so that it will
spit out a vendor code durning the DHCP Discover?

Everytime I try to do the following:
'you'll need to fix-up your net/protocol.ini and net/system.ini
'We call \net\net.exe init /dynamic etc from autoexec.bat in the image
'and it picks up the (followed by \net\netbind.com)


it causes my system to reboot, guessing memory issues.


----- Original Message ----
From: Ian McDonald <iam at st-andrews.ac.uk>
To: For discussion of SYSLINUX and tftp-hpa <syslinux at zytor.com>
Sent: Friday, December 14, 2007 3:50:20 PM
Subject: Re: [syslinux] KEEPPXE/DOS

Jonathan Hurd wrote:
> First off I love syslinux and it has worked flawless for us on the unix
side of the realm.
>
>
> We're trying to use our ghost images within a dos netboot using syslinux.
Unfortunatly we can only pass DHCP ip's to hosts that exhibit a vendor code
'like windows/pxe/and other os's do". Unfortunatly DOS does not, so we
cannot request a second IP after the pxe process to map samba shares. From
what I've read you can use the 'keeppxe' line and call the orrignal ip
information recieved durning the pxe boot process? Is that correct, and if
so how would I do that.
>
>
> If that is not the case and I can keep around universal pxe stack to load
dhcp again so that it exhibts a vendor code, how could I do that?
>
> Basicaly I need a way to map a samba share after the netboot, and I would
need an ip address on the network to do that. This would be an automated
process so I cant just enter a static... has to be a dhcp enabled one, or
one handed from the pxe process...
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>
>

Use the keeppxe option in the boot stanza, and then use an UNDI driver
for your networking in DOS. Like it says in the documentation.

example pxelinux.cfg file

--snip
default nasty-dos-hack

label nasty-dos-hack
    kernel memdisk
    append initrd=my.img.gz keeppxe
--unsnip

you'll need to fix-up your net/protocol.ini and net/system.ini

We call \net\net.exe init /dynamic etc from autoexec.bat in the image
and it picks up the (followed by \net\netbind.com)

We're using the 3com UNDI driver, which can be lifted from the 3com MBA
utility disks found at ftp://ftp.3com.com/pub/nic/3c90x/util430.exe.

Note this doesn't restrict you to using 3com network cards, it works
with any PXE-capable card that we've tried.

HTH

--
ian

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