[syslinux] SysLinux 5.0 - Problems booting via PXE

[Matt Fleming]

On Mon, 2013-01-14 at 12:11 +0100, Schlomo Schapiro wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> On 14 January 2013 10:00, Matt Fleming <matt at console-pimps.org> wrote:
> >
> > > > What was the PATH string that you used in your config file? What error
> >
>  > > message did you get when it didn't work?
> > > >
> > >
> > > PATH /bin
> > >
> > > $tftp_prefix/bin contains all the syslinux stuff. I had to symlink the
> > > lib*c32 files to $tftp_prefix (which is HTTP based).
> >
> > Hmm.. the symlink shouldn't have been necessary. I'll try and debug
> > this.
> >
> 
> The reason for the symlink is that I want to be able to easily switch
> between pxelinux versions (and their dependant c32 progs).

You should be able to switch between versions using a symlink, but be
aware that the PATH directive is new in 5.00, and so you'll have to use
absolute paths for any earlier version.

You can put all the .c32 modules in $tftp_prefix/bin except ldlinux.c32.
ldlinux.c32 is special, it's a critical file and must be in the tftp
root directory.

> What other method yould you suggest for this purpose? Should I use
> bin/pxelinux.0 as the bootfile and it will automatically try to load the
> modules from bin/ as well? But I would need $tftp_prefix to be the "root"
> from which stuff like "config menu/server.txt" works...

You'll need pxelinux.0, ldlinux.c32 and pxelinux.cfg in your root
directory. It should then be possible to place everything else in /bin.
Like I said above, if you're switching to a version of Syslinux < 5.00
you'll need to use absolute paths in your config files,
e.g. /bin/menu.c32.

For example, this is the layout I used to switch between 4.06 and 5.00,

lrwxrwxrwx. 1 matt matt      4 Jan 14 14:45 bin -> bin5
drwxrwxr-x. 2 matt matt   4096 Jan 14 14:43 bin4
drwxrwxr-x. 2 matt matt   4096 Jan 14 14:45 bin5
-rw-r--r--. 1 matt matt 102816 Jan 14 14:45 gpxelinux.0
-rw-r--r--. 1 matt matt 430460 Jan 14 14:45 ldlinux.c32
-rw-r--r--. 1 matt matt  38520 Jan 14 14:45 pxelinux.0
drwxrwxr-x. 2 matt matt   4096 Jan 14 14:38 pxelinux.cfg


-- 
Matt Fleming, Intel Open Source Technology Center