[syslinux] pxechain.com and gpxelinux.0 odd behavior

[Gene Cumm]

On Aug 8, 2013 1:08 PM, "Hans Lellelid" <hans at velum.net> wrote:
>
> I've spent a lot more time with this today, trying to get this working with
> 4.07, 5.01, and 5.10 ... no luck, but I did have a few follow-up questions.

Thanks for testing.

> (1) Should it be possible to use the newer (e.g. 5.10) version of syslinux
> and use http:// URLs for both the initial vmlinuz image and also the
> initrd? -- As I was doing before with gpxelinux.0?  A naive attempt to use
> lpxelinux.0 on our cobbler box w/o any chainloading is failing like this:
>
> Loading http://<cobbler-ip>/cobbler/images/CentOS-5.9-i386/vmlinuz ...
> netconn_write error -5
> L
> Boot failed: press a key to retry, or wait for reset...
> .......

This is what I was talking about. Some systems see errors like this
but you weren't naive. Any chance you could try 5.11-pre9?  I'd guess
it's probably not different but it may be worth testing.  I've been
working on bug #19 ( http://bugzilla.syslinux.org/show_bug.cgi?id=19
).

> Earlier attempts to chain load from lpxelinux.0 ->
> tftp://server2/lpxelinux.0  also failed, I suspect for a similar error.
>
> (2) The new gpxelinux.0 in 5.10 seems to not work at all (with our VMWare
> VMs, anyway).  That may be on the known-bugs list.

VMware platforms are my main test bed.  I don't recall gpxelinux.0
issues but can test.

> (3) I assume I should be using pxechn.c32 instead of pxechain.com now
> always?

In 5.00+, yes.

> I updated the pxelinux.cfg/default on my first-stop server to look like
> this:
>
> label cobbler
> COM32 pxechn.c32
> append tftp://172.20.30.10/lpxelinux.0
>
> This specific example (using lpxelinux.0) refuses to load the http-url
> kernel from my cobbler box, but if I use non-URL paths (i.e. TFTP) for
> kernel and initrd it works just fine.

That's perfect minus the bug.

> Any further help appreciated! :)
>
> All I need to do here is have support for multiple pxe servers (chain) and
> support loading kernel and initrd over http since tftp is unusably slow for
> these larger files in certain networks.  I'm happy to try whatever versions
> or combinations of pxelinux.0/lpxelinux.0/gpxelinux.0/etc. get me there :)
>
> Thanks,
> Hans

-- 
-Gene

A: Because it messes up the order in which people normally read text,
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