[syslinux] ISOLinux, menu.c32 and PXE handoff?

[Bishop]

On Fri, Jul 18, 2008 at 3:25 PM, Andrew Stuart <andrew at shopcusa.com> wrote:

> H. Peter Anvin wrote:
> > No, it doesn't, but what you *can* do is have a floppy or CD with gPXE
> > on it, see http://www.rom-o-matic.net/ -- there is also a CD with all
> > the drivers floating around, but I can't remember where.
>
> I suspect you mean: ftp://ftp.scyld.com/private/jlehan/pxe-on-a-disk.html


Actually, I think that both these solutions do something different from what
I may need:  The target machine does have PXE, and it can boot from DHCP
easily.  The challenge is that the network it's on is where it must stay,
said network has no PXE resources we can modify, and finally I'd love to be
able to redirect it to my pxelinux server in the basement.

When I boot a machine now, and it needs to 'chain' over to another server,
it looks like this:
 - machine starts
 - solicits for DHCP + Boot
 - gets IP and Next-Server
 - gets pxelinux.0 from Next-Server
 - user selects option to have it chain to server2.example.net::pxelinux.0
 - gets pxelinux.0 from server2
 - runs app from server2 (in this case, RH kickstart or Memtest)

Ideally, in this other network with another DHCP server, I'd like:
 - machine starts
 - boots from isolinux/syslinux
 - runs app from CD
 - solicits for DHCP with no Next-Server
 - gets pxelinux.0 from server2
 - runs app from server2

The gPXE disk (which offers an 'all-drivers' option!) seems to boot.  The
big win would be if I could tack a machine::pxelinux.0 into an APPEND on the
isolinux.cfg on that gPXE iso.

Does isolinux take that kind of machine::pxelinux.0 handoff?  I'm fearing
No.

On Fri, Jul 18, 2008 at 2:55 PM, H. Peter Anvin <hpa at zytor.com> wrote:
>> In a nearly-related question, does menu.c32 allow machine::pxelinux.0
>> redirection in the sense that pxelinux.0 does?  I can't get it go, and
not
>> for lack of trying!
>
>It does, but only when running on top of pxelinux.0.

My pxelinux.cfg is (with different names/IPs):

DEFAULT menu.c32
PROMPT 0
MENU TITLE  Linux and Tools
TIMEOUT 200
TOTALTIMEOUT 6000
ONTIMEOUT local

LABEL local
        MENU LABEL (local)
        MENU DEFAULT
        LOCALBOOT 0

LABEL choochoo
       MENU LABEL Choochoo Linux Tools
       kernel 192.168.2.101::/linux-install/pxelinux.0

I suspect I've made a bone-head noob error here, but no amount of pondering
and permutation seems to get me that last inch.  It looks like pxelinux.0 is
running menu.c32, so I'm glad to hear I can maybe get a menu system and a
handoff to choochoo, but don't spend too much time on it -- I'd rather see
features and fixes go into the product than waste your time in support.

Thanks for both your time, so far, and I still hope I'm not too much of a
bother!

 - bish