From owner-freebsd-net@FreeBSD.ORG Sun Sep 26 02:36:34 2010 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-net@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 7BF40106566B for ; Sun, 26 Sep 2010 02:36:34 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from wblock@wonkity.com) Received: from wonkity.com (wonkity.com [67.158.26.137]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 0279C8FC0A for ; Sun, 26 Sep 2010 02:36:33 +0000 (UTC) Received: from wonkity.com (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by wonkity.com (8.14.4/8.14.4) with ESMTP id o8Q2AFli088053; Sat, 25 Sep 2010 20:10:15 -0600 (MDT) (envelope-from wblock@wonkity.com) Received: from localhost (wblock@localhost) by wonkity.com (8.14.4/8.14.4/Submit) with ESMTP id o8Q2AFOu088050; Sat, 25 Sep 2010 20:10:15 -0600 (MDT) (envelope-from wblock@wonkity.com) Date: Sat, 25 Sep 2010 20:10:15 -0600 (MDT) From: Warren Block To: Daniel Feenberg In-Reply-To: Message-ID: References: User-Agent: Alpine 2.00 (BSF 1167 2008-08-23) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed X-Greylist: Sender IP whitelisted, not delayed by milter-greylist-4.2.6 (wonkity.com [127.0.0.1]); Sat, 25 Sep 2010 20:10:15 -0600 (MDT) Cc: freebsd-net@freebsd.org, Alex Aminoff Subject: Re: Network booting FreeBSD with gpxelinx almost works X-BeenThere: freebsd-net@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Networking and TCP/IP with FreeBSD List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Sun, 26 Sep 2010 02:36:34 -0000 On Sat, 25 Sep 2010, Daniel Feenberg wrote: > We have been network booting FreeBSD for some time with pxeboot. So I am > confident that we have the dhcpd.conf and the root filesystem sufficient for > diskless booting. But now we would like to have menu of OSs to boot and got > the idea somewhere that gpxelinux could do that for us. We copied gpxelinux.0 > from the syslinux-4.02 distribution and replaced pxeboot with "gpxelinux" in > the dhcpd.conf file. Indeed with a configuration file in pxelinux.cfg like > this: > > default freebsd > label freebsd > PXE pxeboot > > and the root path still specified as a DHCP option, FreeBSD 8.1 does boot. If > I replace the first line with: > > UI menu.c32 > > the client does display the menu and but if one hits return to select the > single item offered the client merely hangs for a minute, then announces > "boot failure". I am guessing that once the UI is interposed, somehow the > root path isn't getting transmitted to pxeboot. 4.01 works, both with menu.c32 and vesamenu.c32. I can't say I've experimented much farther, but used it when writing this: http://www.wonkity.com/~wblock/docs/html/pxe.html > All the other gpxelinux boot kernels seem to expect the information > about the root filesystem to be specified in the pxelinux.cfg file, > rather than in dhcpd.conf. FreeBSD's pxeboot isn't as versatile as others. > Does anyone have experience with this? FreeBSD isn't mentioned > anywhere I can find in the syslinux or gpxelinux documentation, and > the various web posting I have found linking FreeBSD to gpxelinux are > all about do installations of iso files over the net. Yes, that's one of the reasons I wrote the article above.