Syslinux - Jul 2007 - Is there a howto for using redboot to kickoff a pxelinux boot?

The subject says it all.

I'm using rocks cluster software to startup a small blade cluster in my
lab.  The blades I have redboot installed on them.  I am able to boot
any client that has pxeboot capability using my setup, except for these
blades.  My thoughs were using redboot commands to do the following:

1.	load -v -r -b 0x8000000 -h 10.1.1.1 pxelinux.0
2.	start

 

This however caused my blade to reboot spontaneously.  Should have known
it couldn't be that easy.  

Has anyone attempted this before?  Thanks in advance.

 

Rich Maes

Lead Systems Engineer

Isothermal Systems Research, Inc.

office: 509-232-3458

mobile: 509-701-1356

www.spraycool.com <BLOCKED::http://www.spraycool.com/>

Maes Rich wrote:
> 
> I'm using rocks cluster software to startup a small blade cluster in my
> lab.  The blades I have redboot installed on them.  I am able to boot
> any client that has pxeboot capability using my setup, except for these
> blades.  My thoughs were using redboot commands to do the following:
> 
> 1.	load -v -r -b 0x8000000 -h 10.1.1.1 pxelinux.0
> 2.	start
> 
> This however caused my blade to reboot spontaneously.  Should have known
> it couldn't be that easy.  
> 
> Has anyone attempted this before?  Thanks in advance.
> 
Have you asked on the Redboot mailing lists?

FWIW, pxelinux.0 would have to be loaded at 0x7c00, and a PXE API needs
to be presented.  Otherwise you have to load Etherboot/gPXE as an
intermediate stage in order to provide the PXE stack.

	-hpa

Op 18-07-2007 om 11:15 schreef Maes Rich:
> The subject says it all.
> 
> I'm using rocks cluster software to startup a small blade cluster in my
> lab.  The blades I have redboot installed on them.  I am able to boot
> any client that has pxeboot capability using my setup, except for these
> blades.  My thoughs were using redboot commands to do the following:
> 
> 1.	load -v -r -b 0x8000000 -h 10.1.1.1 pxelinux.0
> 2.	start
> 
> This however caused my blade to reboot spontaneously. 
> Should have known it couldn't be that easy.  
    :-)     nobody said it would be easy

> Has anyone attempted this before?

My guess is that redboot binaries have another header format,
then the pxelinux.0 has.

An simple check would be doing

  file pxelinux.0

and

  file a_redboot_executable


After prepending pxelinux.0 with the redboot header info,
you will mostly likely will be missing PXE code in the redboot boot ROM.


My advice is to contact the people from the Etherboot project,
if you want to continue with "pxelinux.0 on redboot"



Cheers
Geert Stappers


P.S.

I wonder why to load pxelinux.0 to load a kernel,
where redboot can load a kernel at once ...