[syslinux] memdisk isolinux and voyage-0.6.5.iso

[Gene Cumm]

On Tue, Aug 10, 2010 at 23:03, Jim Cromie <jim.cromie at gmail.com> wrote:
> Im trying to use pxelinux-4.02 + memdisk as follows
>
> LABEL voyage-current
>   MENU LABEL   ^C.  voyage-current
>   LINUX memdisk
>   INITRD voyage-current.iso
>   APPEND iso raw console=ttyS0,115200n81 panic=5 pause
>
> LABEL voyage-0.6.5
>   MENU LABEL   ^6.  voyage-0.6.5
>   LINUX memdisk
>   INITRD voyage-0.6.5.iso
>   APPEND iso raw  console=ttyS0,115200n81 panic=5 pause
>
>
> It mostly works - memdisk successfully loads the isos (raw helped here)
> but the *.cfg's inside the iso dont have a SERIAL directive (which I need)
> and no output is available to help me figure out how things are failing.

By the looks of things, I'm left to assume that your PXELINUX
configuation includes a 'SERIAL' directive already?

Reading doc/memdisk.txt and memdisk.c, 'console' and 'panic' do
nothing.  I don't believe there is any way at this time to pass
parameters to an initrd in any way, regardless of if it's a Syslinux
derivative or not.

It could be done by designating an area that's normally zeroed and put
stuff there.  Although theoretically possible, it's not in the
standards and therefore could be nuked or corrupted by the BIOS.

> `strings` tells me the voyage ISO is using
> ISOLINUX 4.01 debian-20100712
>  Copyright (C) 1994-2010 H. Peter Anvin et al
>
> Is there any way to supply config elements on the command-line ?
> I saw nothing on the wiki..
>
> is it possible that something like this could be made to work ?
>   INITRD voyage-0.6.5.iso='serial\ 0\ 115200:console\ 0',
> ...<additional-initrds>

Since you absolutely require the serial console options, your best bet
is probably to remaster the discs and alter the configuration files
that are used to include these options.

Other than that, you'd have to override the BIOS console I/O functions
to use the serial port as the console which is extremely risky.

-- 
-Gene