[syslinux] syslinux-6.03 failed to boot ESXI 6.7

[Ady Ady]

> Hello, list,
> 
>    I'm buiding syslinux6.3 with ESXI6.7, but it says,
> 
>   * failed to load COM32 File
> http://172.16.234.112/images/esxi67/mboot.c32*
> 
> Here is my config:
> 
> ------------------
> 
> label esxi
>   menu label ESXI-6.7 ^Installer
>   kernel http://172.16.234.112/images/esxi67/mboot.c32
>   append -c http://172.16.234.112/images/esxi67/boot.cfg
> --------------------
> 
> Seeing from http access log, mboot.c32 was loading successfully.
> 172.16.235.99 - - [12/Mar/2019:17:59:15 +0800] "GET
> /images/esxi67/mboot.c32 HTTP/1.0" 200 90088 "-" "Syslinux/6.03"
 
 
IIRC, VMware creates its own "mboot.c32" module, and its source code is 
not published.

Since the c32 modules must match the same version of the bootloader 
file, users usually fail to load VMware's mboot.c32 module when using 
some version of Syslinux that is incompatible with the module. 
Therefore, it is only "natural" to see upstream Syslinux v.6.03 failing 
to use that VMware's module.

Additionally, if users attempt to use the official mboot.c32 module 
from Syslinux as if it was the module from VMware, it will certainly 
fail on every occasion, simply because these are different modules, in 
spite of having the same name.

VMware's mboot.c32 is probably from around v.4.05 or even from 3.8x; 
pxechain.com and mostly pxechn.c32 come to mind, considering the "-c" 
option being used in order to load some cfg file. This "-c" option has 
nothing to do with the official upstream Syslinux's mboot.c32 module.

Giving that the source code of VMware's mboot.c32 has not been 
published (AFAIK), there is nothing that upstream Syslinux developers 
can do/say about it.

Regards,
Ady.