[syslinux] KEEPPXE/DOS

Murali (முரளி கணபதி) murali at google.com
Sun Dec 30 09:42:32 PST 2007


If all you want is "ip=<client-ip>:<boot-server-ip>:<gw-ip>:<netmask>"
information in DOS, you can try running getargs.com from
http://www.mahamurali.net/downloads. It outputs a DOS batch file which
when executed sets the variable FOO to "bar", whenever "FOO=bar"
appears in the memdisk command line.

For eg.,
if you add

getargs.com > setvars.bat
setvars.bat

to your autoexec.bat, you should have a variable called IP whose value
is <client-ip>:<boot-server-ip>:<gw-ip>:<netmask>. Once you have this
information, can't you just set up a STATIC IP with the given
particulars. You probably need to some shell scripting to pull out the
various parts and create your configuration files.

Hope this helps.

- Murali

On Dec 17, 2007 8:33 PM, Jonathan Hurd <texasjhurd at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Err after reading up on the options the syslinux command line would be
>
> Menu Ghost
> KERNEL memdisk
> APPEND initrd=MSDOS.IMG
> IPAPPEND 1
>
>
> and the ouput if quered would be: ip=<client-ip>:<boot-server-ip>:<gw-ip>:<netmask> ??
>
> how could I query that information in PCDOS7, sorry if this is out of the scope of this group.
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message ----
> From: Jonathan Hurd <texasjhurd at yahoo.com>
> To: For discussion of SYSLINUX and tftp-hpa <syslinux at zytor.com>
>
> Sent: Monday, December 17, 2007 8:56:09 AM
> Subject: Re: [syslinux] KEEPPXE/DOS
>
>
> Thanks HPA, this is where I was getting at...
>
> First am I going in the right direction? I can only get an IP in two ways for the client to boot up a samba share. One, if I somehow grab the IP from pxe process through a memdisk query.Two, if I make a second DHCP request. Option two according to security standards will only work if I can provide some sort of DHCP identifer for those clients. Being that this is DOS, I dont think there is any single identifer to point it out from anything else (correct me if I'm wrong, and I could not find anything in the DHCP packets for dhcpd.conf to work with).
>
> So that really only leaves me with option 1. Can you explain how I would do a memdisk query to retrieve the IP (if possible with /dos), Subnet Mask, and GW from the pxeprocess. Your also telling me that there is no reason use the keeppxe line, that is only to keep the undi driver around. Instead I would use "ipappend 1"??
>
> Like this?
> MENU Ghost
> KERNEL memdisk
> APPEND ipappend1 initrd=MSDOS.IMG
>
> Thanks
>
>
> ----- Original Message ----
> From: H. Peter Anvin <hpa at zytor.com>
> To: For discussion of SYSLINUX and tftp-hpa <syslinux at zytor.com>
> Sent: Friday, December 14, 2007 4:12:33 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...
>
> Ultimately this is a question about the DOS networking stack you're
> using, not about SYSLINUX, which makes it difficult to answer.
>
> With the "keeppxe" option, syslinux will keep the PXE stack loaded (it
> eats up a LOT of low memory, however.)  If you're using MEMDISK, an
> alternative is to specify "ipappend 1" and then use the MEMDISK query
> API to get the ip= line from the memdisk saved command line.
>
> The keeppxe option has the advantage that you can use an UNDI driver in
> DOS, which means your networking is hardware-independent... as long as
> you're willing to lose 64-128K of DOS memory.
>
>     -hpa
>
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-- 
Murali

கற்றது ைகமண் அளவு, கல்லாதது உலகளவு
(What we know is only a handful, what we dont is the rest of the world)


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