I would like to develop a system where by I can boot any of the machines on my system - and select from a menu what I would like that particular client to do. For example, maybe load a bootdisk image from a network share, and boot that. Or boot the first partition on the local disk.
Mr Tyrese wrote:> I would like to develop a system where by I can boot any of the > machines on my system - and select from a menu what I would like that > particular client to do. For example, maybe load a bootdisk image from > a network share, and boot that. Or boot the first partition on the > local disk.(I assume that all your PCs have a NIC with a PXE or Etherboot ROM.) The answer to your question is yes (it is possible). You need: - DHCP server - TFTP server - pxelinux.0 - menu.c32 for the menu - memdisk for booting floppy images - chain.c32 for booting local devices - sbm.cbt (comboot version of Smart Boot Manager) for booting from a ATAPI-CDROM Cheers Alex
---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Mr Tyrese <tyreseonline at gmail.com> Date: Mon, 31 Jan 2005 01:18:08 +0000 Subject: Re: [syslinux] Can this work? To: Alexander Heinz <mailsanmich at gmx.li> On Mon, 31 Jan 2005 02:10:40 +0100, Alexander Heinz <mailsanmich at gmx.li> wrote:> Mr Tyrese wrote: > > I would like to develop a system where by I can boot any of the > > machines on my system - and select from a menu what I would like that > > particular client to do. For example, maybe load a bootdisk image from > > a network share, and boot that. Or boot the first partition on the > > local disk. > > (I assume that all your PCs have a NIC with a PXE or Etherboot ROM.) > > The answer to your question is yes (it is possible). > > You need: > - DHCP server > - TFTP server > - pxelinux.0 > - menu.c32 for the menu > - memdisk for booting floppy images > - chain.c32 for booting local devices > - sbm.cbt (comboot version of Smart Boot Manager) for booting from a > ATAPI-CDROM > > Cheers > AlexYes, I have a DHCP server, a TFTP server, and I'm assuming the rest are downloadable from the internet. All my systems have ATAPI-CDROM drives, definatly. I'm spent an age looking on the net for a HOWTO document, but I have been unsuccesful. Can you help point me in the right direction?
>>You need: >>- DHCP server >>- TFTP server >>- pxelinux.0 >>- menu.c32 for the menu >>- memdisk for booting floppy images >>- chain.c32 for booting local devices >>- sbm.cbt (comboot version of Smart Boot Manager) for booting from a >>ATAPI-CDROM> Yes, I have a DHCP server, a TFTP server, and I'm assuming the rest > are downloadable from the internet. All my systems have ATAPI-CDROM > drives, definatly. I'm spent an age looking on the net for a HOWTO > document, but I have been unsuccesful. Can you help point me in the > right direction?All you need is the latest syslinux package to get started (pxelinux.0, menu.c32, memdisk and chain.c32 are included). Get familiar with the syslinux.cfg syntax. Read the files syslinux.doc, pxelinux.doc and README.MENU. Here are a few expamples: LABEL fd MENU LABEL Floppy A: KERNEL chain.c32 append fd0 LABEL hda MENU LABEL MBR of the 1st hard disk KERNEL chain.c32 append hd0 LABEL flpimg MENU LABEL dos floppy image KERNEL memdisk append initrd=dosfloppy.ima LABEL netlinux MENU LABEL load Linux from network KERNEL vmlinuz APPEND ramdisk_blocksize=4096 initrd=initrd root=/dev/rd/0 vga=791 get http://fdos.org/bootdisks/autogen/btmgr-3.7-1.cbt.zip and extract sbm.cbt for booting from an ATAPI-CD-ROM Cheers Alex