syslinux upgrade for tc4.7.x?

[gmc]

Could not find kernel image: menu.c32

Simple:...

Simple?!  No!  It is not simple! 

I started working on computers before CP/M (the predecessor to MSDOS) was popular.  I was patching programs in hexidecimal, booting from hard drives on machines that didn't even know how to find a boot sector, programming in octal, writing commercially viable programs in assembly language (I taught myself assembly programing by reading!), and on and on, way before linux was born.  I have taught computer science on the high school and college level.  I worked as a computer support/network specialist for many years.  I'm not a computer novice but linux leaves me feeling like a rank newbie.

I have read and reread the syslinux docs.  The more I read the more confused I get.  It all seems to make sense, to a point, but I never quite feel like I can grasp the whole picture.  Something is always missing in the documentation.

There seems to be so much that is assumed by the writers of said docs, as if I am supposed to have this vast knowlege base and broad experience, so that I just somehow "know" unwritten rules and arcane secrets.

I just need some basic, simple instructions that don't involve hours and hours of reading confusing documents that contain pages and pages of information that I don't need for the immediate task.  Believe it or not, I actually read manuals!  I like to know the details.  I like to understand how things work.  But I like to read manuals that spell things out clearly and simply so that normal mortals can understand them.

@genec
Please don't take this as a personal attack on you.  It isn't.  I know that you are just one of those highly intelligent linux gurus.  Your heart is in the right place and your comments are full of good stuff - but I am just not at your level (and probably never will be!).

I just need someone to offer simple, step-by-step help with something that should be relatively easy.

I asked how to upgreade syslinux and was told to follow the steps in the Apps Info tab.  (I should have seen that info but will have to admit that my severly limited vision makes it hard to read the fine print.)  I followed those steps.  They didn't work.  I blieve I did the steps exactly as they were presented.  Shouldn't they be correct?  If not, couldn't someone please tell me in plain English what's wrong and how to fix it?  If they are correct then maybe I just need to go through the process again until I get it right.

Better yet, how do I install syslinux 5.01?  I tried following the syslinux docs but can't seem to find the secret potion there, either. 

I am so tired of feeling dumb, ignorant and slow of comprehension.  Won't someone please take pity on this poor mortal and share just a little of their knowledge and experience?

Oh, and there isn't enough room on the internal flash drive to unpack syslinux-5.01, so I have to use an external USB drive.  That is giving me problems using tar, with all kinds of permissions problems, even though the target directory has the same permissions and owner settings as on the internal drive.  I even went so far as to download the .zip version on Windows and unzip it to the USB flash drive.  Still can't get it to work according to the syslinux docs.  Sigh...

Thanks for taking the time to read this and for understanding my frustrations.

/end of diatribe

I'll probably regret posting this when I wake up.  I pray no one takes offense.

[gmc]

OK.  I just went and tried the syslinux 4.05 upgrade again.  This time I looked at the Apps Info instructions a bit more and decided that they wre not correct for my needs.  I guessed, correctly, that I did not need to create a new directory, (I used /mnt/sda1/tce/boot/extlinux). I did not need to use the -i (install) argument but instead needed to use the -U, (upgrade) argument.  I did not need to copy the CD ISO config file and rename it.  I simply used the existing extlinux config file.

End result?  It worked.  I now boot with extlinux 4.05.

I would still like to know how to upgrade to syslinux 5.01 but for now I am able to take advantage of some of the features of version 4.

Have a great day!

Glen

[genec]

I would still like to know how to upgrade to syslinux 5.01 but for now I am able to take advantage of some of the features of version 4.

Like any other Syslinux upgrade:

• Install the new core binary in place of the old one; for you, "extlinux -u /mount/path/to/current/" specifying the directory where ldlinux.sys lives.
• Copy in the new .c32 modules; presumably, this would be to the same path but depends on the config.
• Copy other utilities like MEMDISK as appropriate

Anything else would depend on where files are on your disk and the contents of your config file.

[gmc]

I would still like to know how to upgrade to syslinux 5.01 but for now I am able to take advantage of some of the features of version 4.

Like any other Syslinux upgrade:

• Install the new core binary in place of the old one; for you, "extlinux -u /mount/path/to/current/" specifying the directory where ldlinux.sys lives.
• Copy in the new .c32 modules; presumably, this would be to the same path but depends on the config.
• Copy other utilities like MEMDISK as appropriate

Anything else would depend on where files are on your disk and the contents of your config file.

Thanks genec,

I appreciate the help.  I gathered from what tinypoodle wrote and from what I read on the syslinux docs pages that it should work that way but was having some trouble with the first part.  I could download and extract to a USB drive and see the extlinux file, but it would not execute.  The system said the file did not exist.

My work-around was to download the .zip version of syslinux and use emelfm to find the file.  emelfm will automatically extract a .zip file into a temporary ram based location and I was then able to run extlinux.  Crude, but it worked.

I am now booting extlinux 5.10 (it just came out June 4th.) and PXE is working (but there are many changes in the way it works).

Thanks for the help and have a great day.

[genec]

*nix hint: to execute something in the current directory, prefix with "./", ie "./extlinux".  if not executable, chmod may be needed.

Syslinux-5.xx won't operate much differently except it hunts for ldlinux.c32 and lib*.c32 to resolve a dependency in a COM32-ELF.  PXELINUX-5.10 adds lwIP to allow HTTP transfers without gPXE/iPXE.

[gmc]

Thanks genec!  I had seen the ./ in some prior posts but assumed that it had to do with directory path info or some such.  I have so much to learn.  That hint will be most useful.

You were right on with the ldlinux and c32 lib stuff.  Those were the very things I had to figure out.  None of my PXE menu choices would work until I got all those files where they could be found at PXE client boot time.  I suppose there is a "proper" place to copy them to but I found that putting them in /netboot worked, so that is where they are for now.

You really got my interest up with that last bit about http!  I think I need to read up on that because I want to PXE boot some larger .iso images and I don't need to tell you how slow that is with tftp.  Thanks for mentioning it!

Have a great day!

[curaga]

TFTP can be quite fast when you configure it to use bigger blocks. The default is 512 bytes IIRC, at 64kb it's quite swift.

[genec]

TFTP can be quite fast when you configure it to use bigger blocks. The default is 512 bytes IIRC, at 64kb it's quite swift.

Most PXE stacks I've seen are limited to ~MTU and won't implement a window larger than 1, topping out around 1-2 MB/s.  I've heard the MS TFTP service in some version will do a window of 8.  However, I've seen PXELINUX 4.10-pre16 and 5.10 doing 17MB/s and I heard a claim of 70 MB/s, both over HTTP.

[curaga]

Ah yes, bios limits. I've been using busybox on both ends, they support 64kb fine.

[gmc]

Ah So!  Velly Intelesting.  I go study now...

Seriously, I had forgotten about the size options.  I think I put it aside because I didn't want to add potential boot problems while I was learning and testing.  I may still play with those settings once everything is set up and working properly just to see what difference they make in speed.  But for now I am seriously looking at http boot for the big stuff.

Thanks for all the input!

Glen

[gmc]

I've been trying to find out how to use http for pxe booting.  So far all I have found is some allusion to it based on some sample pxe boot configs such as the following from the syslinux wiki:

 label linux
      menu label Install - ^Classic
      kernel Suse/linux92
      append initrd=Suse/initrd92 ramdisk_size=65536 vga=0 textmode=1 install=http://IPADDR serverdir=/9.2/install
autoyast=http://IPADDR/9.2/scripts/ay92.xml
   
    label linuxfull
      menu label Install - ^Developer
      kernel Suse/linux92
      append initrd=Suse/initrd92 ramdisk_size=65536 vga=0 textmode=1 install=http://IPADDR serverdir=/9.2/install
autoyast=http://IPADDR/9.2/scripts/develdesktop.xml

The problem is that these samples are presented without explanation or clarification.  So far I have not found anything that directly addresses using http for pxe boot with syslinux 5.x, other than these cryptic samples.

I was hoping that someone here might have used pxe boot with http access and be willing to share some pointers, or maybe someone could point me to some links that have the needed information.

Thanks,

Glen

[genec]

HTTP requires gPXE/iPXE or PXELINUX 5.10 (the only official release with lwIP; use lpxelinux.0 instead of pxelinux.0).  If booting from the PXE OROM on a card, you need a tftpd for the initial payload.  If booting gPXE/iPXE from floppy/HDD/CD or a NIC with gPXE/iPXE as its OROM, you don't need it.

Simplest first step if you already have a working PXE system is to place/link your kernel and initrd such that you can use them over HTTP then use a LABEL like:

Code: [Select]

LABEL tc-http
  LINUX http://10.0.0.2/tftp/boot/vmlinuz
  APPEND http://10.0.0.2/tftp/boot/core.gz loglevel=3 cde

On my systems http://localhost/tftp/ is equal to the root directory of the tftpd.

Just an FYI: there has been recent discussion on the Syslinux mailing list about this exact topic.  A more advanced method is to set DHCP option 210 (and possibly 209) via the vendor option space (aka encapsulated under option 43; preferred as it won't need a forceful injection) or global option space (which requires that you forcefully return option 210 even though it was not requested).

[gmc]

HTTP requires gPXE/iPXE or PXELINUX 5.10 (the only official release with lwIP; use lpxelinux.0 instead of pxelinux.0).  If booting from the PXE OROM on a card, [I am] you need a tftpd for the initial payload.  [Got it]

Simplest first step if you already have a working PXE system is to place/link your kernel and initrd such that you can use them over HTTP [Done - see below] then use a LABEL like:

Code: [Select]

LABEL tc-http
  LINUX http://10.0.0.2/tftp/boot/vmlinuz
  APPEND http://10.0.0.2/tftp/boot/core.gz loglevel=3 cde

On my systems http://localhost/tftp/ is equal to the root directory of the tftpd.

Thanks for all that useful info.  I think I am almost there but I need one more piece of information.  The http boot fails with no error message.

Here is what I have set up so far.

I have changed from pxelinux.0 to lpxelinux.0 and that is working fine.

I modified the first entry on my default boot menu as indicated, leaving all other entries as they were (they still work). 

The first entry now points to

kernel http://192.168.0.7/pxeboot/vmlinuz and append quiet vga=768 initrd= http://192.168.0.7/pxeboot/core.gz.

The pxeboot share is working as I can browse to it with an address of 192.168.0.7/pxeboot (and see vmlinuz and core.gz).  The server does ask for a password.  Pressing Enter without a password defaults to a guest logon.

I suspect that the pxe boot fails because I don't have a user name or password.  I have searched for the proper syntax for including a user name and password but can't find it.  Is it possible to pass those values and if so, would you know the proper syntax?

Or do you think there may be something I am missing in my setup?

Thanks,

Glen

[genec]

Did you try without the authentication prompt?  Likely without HTTP status code 200, it will only fail.  HTTP authentication will likely be a feature request.

[gmc]

Did you try without the authentication prompt?  Likely without HTTP status code 200, it will only fail.  HTTP authentication will likely be a feature request.

Hi - no I didn't try without the authentication request - I don't know how.  I can't turn it off on the server - it isn't an option.  On ther server, if logon fails it will just revert to a guest logon.  I would expect that to work for read only access.

Is there a way to get the pxelinux error message to pause so I can read it?


From your "feature request" statement it sounds like passing the username/password is currently not an option.  Would that be a correct assumption?

If not, then I may have to use gpxe/ipxe.

Thanks,

Glen