[syslinux] pxelinux.bin (3.80) hanging at the beginning of menu.c32 TFTP transfer

[Philippe Auphelle]

Geert,

Thanks for for your work, and for a very detailed analysis.
All that you wrote found and described is perfectly exact.

> I think the culpritt is using pxelinux.bin for PXE booting.

pxelinux.bin and pxelinux.0 are both from the "core" -Pre16 directory
and are the two exact same files (I just double checked by a bin
compare followed by an MD5 and SHA1 checksum computation - belt and
suspenders).

Did you fear that both files were actually different, or is there
something else that I'm missing?



On Fri, May 29, 2009 at 15:19, Geert Stappers <stappers at stappers.nl> wrote:
> Op 20090529 om 11:33 schreef Philippe Auphelle:
>> Hi Geert,
>
> This goes to a mailinglist ...
>
>> On Fri, May 29, 2009 at 10:21, Geert Stappers <stappers at stappers.nl> wrote:
>> > Op 20090528 om 09:16 schreef Philippe Auphelle:
>> >>
>> >> I extracted pxelinux.bin and menu.c32 from Testing pre-16 and ran the
>> >> test. I unfortunately got a result that's quite similar to the one I
>> >> had with the 3.80 release:
>> >>
>> >> The last activity pxelinux.bin displays is the transfer of the
>> >> "default" file ("Trying to load: pxelinux.cfg/default"). Looking at
>> >> the trace, that transfer is successful.
>> >>
>> >> Then the client sends an TFTP RRQ for menu.c32, the TFTP server
>> >> ignores the option negociation and sends back a regular TFTP data
>> >> packet with a 516-byte payload (524-byte UDP, 544-byte IP, 558-byte
>> >> eNet), and at this point, the pxelinux client machine freezes.
>> >> WireShark doesn't report any kind of error on the reply data packet.
>> >> The server does 3 retries then gives up.
>> >> I have a WireShark-readable trace ready reflecting the problem.
>> >
>> > I willing to explore it with WireShark.
>> > Send me ( and/or this mailinglist) where to download it.
>>
>> You can download it from there:
>> http://dl.free.fr/qHGA8UhQq/PXELinux3_81-Pre16Hang.zip
>>
>> >> Compared to my previous test with 3.80 release, the only (minor)
>> >> difference I see is that this time, the client hard freezes (i.e. Caps
>> >> log toggle or Ctrl-Alt-Del don't do anything anymore). Last time,
>> >> keyboard interrupt handling was still alive.
>> >>
>
>
> PXELinux3_81-Pre16Hang.zip has a nice  .pcap file.
>
> Wireshark tells me the same as the original poster is telling.
>
>
> Here my further review:
>
>
> There are 2 DHCP servers in the network,
> one is the router at 192.168.1.1 and another one at 192.168.1.101.
>
> The router hands out adress 192.168.1.100 the client
> The other DHCPserver tells which file to use from which next server.
>
> The client seems to mix both DHCP answers and continues.
>
> pxelinux.bin is succesfull fetched
>
> next is pxelinux.cfg/default fetched
> with this content
> | DEFAULT menu.c32
> | PROMPT 0
> | MENU TITLE Boot Menu
> | TIMEOUT 80
> | ONTIMEOUT ImageMgr
> |
> | LABEL nfs
> |  MENU LABEL Boot Local HDD
> |  LOCALBOOT 0
> |
> | LABEL ImageMgr
> |  MENU LABEL Boot Windows (Image Manager, diskless)  kernel mPXEldr.bin keeppxe
>
> Then there is a TFTP Read request for menu.c32 from the client
> The server provides it, but the client is allready death.
>
>
>
>    ....... some research .....
>
> [1]
>
>
> I think the culpritt is using pxelinux.bin for PXE booting.
>
> This is from the syslinux documentation (in the released tarbal)
>
>    The following commands are available after a LABEL statement:
>
>    LINUX image                 - Linux kernel image (default)
>    BOOT image                  - Bootstrap program (.bs, .bin)
>    BSS image                   - BSS image (.bss)
>    PXE image                   - PXE Network Bootstrap Program (.0)
>    FDIMAGE image               - Floppy disk image (.img)
>    COMBOOT image               - COMBOOT program (.com, .cbt)
>    COM32 image                 - COM32 program (.c32)
>    CONFIG image                - New configuration file
>
>
> I couldn't find that on the syslinux webpages,
> but on http://syslinux.zytor.com/wiki/index.php/PXELINUX
> is pxelinux.0 used.
>
>
> My advice: put pxelinux.0 on the TFTP server and change dhcpd.conf
> something like  s/pxelinux.bin/pxelinux.0/
>
>
>> Best!
>> Phil
>
>
> Looking forward for feedback
>
> Geert Stappers
> taking topqoutes as a slap in the face
>
>
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