[syslinux] Syslinux 5.x and VMware ESXi mboot.c32

[Gene Cumm]

On Thu, May 16, 2013 at 11:54 PM, Shantanu Gadgil
<shantanugadgil at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>
> --- On Thu, 5/16/13, Matt Fleming <matt at console-pimps.org> wrote:
>
> From: Matt Fleming <matt at console-pimps.org>
> Subject: Re: [syslinux] Syslinux 5.x and VMware ESXi mboot.c32
> To: "Shantanu Gadgil" <shantanugadgil at yahoo.com>
> Cc: syslinux at zytor.com
> Date: Thursday, May 16, 2013, 2:05 PM
>
> On Wed, 15 May, at 10:32:01PM, Shantanu Gadgil wrote:
>> Hi,
>>
>> I have had a VMware ESXi network boot setup for quite some time now.
>> After upgrading from 4.06 to 5.01 (or 5.10-pre3) the network boot fails with the following error:
>> --- snip ---
>> Failed to load COM32 file esxi/5.1.0/mboot.c32
>> boot:
>> --- snip ---
>>
>> This error is seen for the ESXi bootup only.
>> The default mboot.c32 from syslinux itself doesn't work and this setup has been working with Syslinux 4.06.
>
> Did you also upgrade mboot.c32 to the corresponding 5.01 (or 5.10-pre3)
> version?
>
> SG> Yes, I did. This wouldn't matter though, right? The mboot.c32 being loaded is the one which ships with ESXi 5.
> (I have the ESXi ISO loopback mounted and the data accessed directly, instead of wasting disk space :) :))

This won't work as ESXi-5.0 uses Syslinux-3.86 components.  You need
to use Syslinux-5.01 components.

http://www.syslinux.org/wiki/index.php/Common_Problems#Modules

> Are there are any other messages printed before the "Failed to load.."
> one above?
>
> SG> None that I can see in the small amount of time :(

Ideally, this error should be more descriptive (why the load failed,
ie wrong COM32 type) however it is sufficient to indicate the issue.

--
-Gene