Syslinux - Apr 2010 - Growing out of floppy images, what's the best alternative?

Hi.

We've been using PXELINUX for years, to kick off OS installations
(floppy images) and booting assorted tools. The addition of ISO support
in memdisk opened up some new alternatives that we also use, e.g.
booting WinPE ISO images over PXE.

Today I downloaded a BIOS for a HP EliteBook 8440p and discovered that
the BIOS file is 3 MB. I could probably squeeze it onto a 2.88 MB floppy
image by compressing it and uncompressing it to a RAM-drive during
execution, but I started looking at alternative solutions that would be
more future proof. There are ways to make floppy images larger than 2.88
MB, but a solution that moves the limit to several hundred MB's would be
preferred.

I'm thinking of making a bootable DOS (Windows 98 version) FAT16 or
FAT32 ISO image with hard disk emulation, booted using memdisk with ISO
support. By making it an ISO image we would also have the option of
burning it to a physical CD/DVD and/or use the ISO to boot virtual
machines without network support. Using hard disk emulation removes the
need for DOS CD drivers, which (I hope/guess) makes it less prone to
BIOS-related problems.

There are several variations possible:

- Skipping ISO and booting HDD images directly over PXE. Removes the
possibility of making real CD/DVD discs and virtual machine booting.
- ISOLINUX ISO with bootable floppy image(s) that can access the ISO for
storage of larger files. Adds at least one level of maintenance.
- ISOLINUX ISO with HDD image(s). Adds at least one level of
maintenance.

Anyone else using a similar method to boot machines to DOS for
maintenance and troubleshooting? Some other method?

Cheers,
Daniel

On 19/04/2010 7:27 PM, Lindgren Daniel wrote:
> - Skipping ISO and booting HDD images directly over PXE. Removes the
> possibility of making real CD/DVD discs and virtual machine booting.
I'd go that way myself... Doesn't really remove the option for real CDs 
(see your 3rd option), and virtual machines could probably be booted 
straight from the HDD images in most cases.

> - ISOLINUX ISO with bootable floppy image(s) that can access the ISO for
> storage of larger files. Adds at least one level of maintenance.
Sounds a bit overcomplicated, especially if you're aiming for PXE 
booting. Would it even work like that?

> - ISOLINUX ISO with HDD image(s). Adds at least one level of
> maintenance.
That would allow for multiple HDD images and be more like the PXE setup. 
With some careful config file creation, you could probably script ISO 
creation based on PXE configs (or vice versa).
I would be going option 1, then maybe heading to this 3rd option *if* I 
ever needed a real CD or an ISO for some reason.




TB

Good day Daniel,

In regards to PXELINUX-booting various DOS scenarios:

Your idea for an .ISO with all of your DOS choices seems nice to me.
You'd obviously require enough RAM for a MEMDISK if you do this.  If you
do, you might be interested in:
- The FDIMAGE directive in your ISOLINUX.CFG file for floppy images you
have
- Gary Tong's and Bart Lagerweij's ELTORITO.SYS DOS driver (ported to
NASM by H. Peter Anvin and now included in Syslinux with kind permission
from Bart) for access to the MEMDISK .ISO from a floppy image

An alternative approach you might also be interested in is SAN-booting;
RAM versus SAN.  'vblade' is such a simple thing to set up, then you can
boot to a SAN with gPXE or WinAoE's aoe.0 file.  Since you have
networking anyway, this would save you RAM.

Fortunately, it's pretty simple to port a pxelinux.cfg/default file over
to become an isolinux.cfg file. :)

- Shao Miller

Hello Daniel,

we use "floppy"-Images with up to 23 MB. We use these bootimages e.g.
for bios/firmware update that will take up to 16 floppy disks.

With Winimage you can create Standard Images till 2.88 MB under Windows.
Winimage can also handle bigger images. But I know no method to create bootable
Floppy images > 2.88 Mb with onboard features of WinImage. Unfortuanally I
can not give you access to our internal bootimages for licence reasons. There
are instruction in the internet how to create a big floppy image e.g. out of the
ghost83.bif file. If you use image bigger than 2.88 MB you have tell memdisk
that this will be a floppy image and at least a hint of the geometry. In my case
the extra parameters "floppy c=255 h=8 s=36" or "floppy c=255
h=16 s=36" will work with my bootimages.

Yours sincerely

Peter Leenders


-----Urspr?ngliche Nachricht-----
Von: syslinux-bounces at zytor.com [mailto:syslinux-bounces at zytor.com] Im
Auftrag von Lindgren Daniel
Gesendet: Montag, 19. April 2010 11:28
An: syslinux at zytor.com
Betreff: [syslinux] Growing out of floppy images, what's the best
alternative?

Hi.

We've been using PXELINUX for years, to kick off OS installations
(floppy images) and booting assorted tools. The addition of ISO support
in memdisk opened up some new alternatives that we also use, e.g.
booting WinPE ISO images over PXE.

Today I downloaded a BIOS for a HP EliteBook 8440p and discovered that
the BIOS file is 3 MB. I could probably squeeze it onto a 2.88 MB floppy
image by compressing it and uncompressing it to a RAM-drive during
execution, but I started looking at alternative solutions that would be
more future proof. There are ways to make floppy images larger than 2.88
MB, but a solution that moves the limit to several hundred MB's would be
preferred.

I'm thinking of making a bootable DOS (Windows 98 version) FAT16 or
FAT32 ISO image with hard disk emulation, booted using memdisk with ISO
support. By making it an ISO image we would also have the option of
burning it to a physical CD/DVD and/or use the ISO to boot virtual
machines without network support. Using hard disk emulation removes the
need for DOS CD drivers, which (I hope/guess) makes it less prone to
BIOS-related problems.

There are several variations possible:

- Skipping ISO and booting HDD images directly over PXE. Removes the
possibility of making real CD/DVD discs and virtual machine booting.
- ISOLINUX ISO with bootable floppy image(s) that can access the ISO for
storage of larger files. Adds at least one level of maintenance.
- ISOLINUX ISO with HDD image(s). Adds at least one level of
maintenance.

Anyone else using a similar method to boot machines to DOS for
maintenance and troubleshooting? Some other method?

Cheers,
Daniel
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On 04/19/2010 02:27 AM, Lindgren Daniel wrote:
> 
> There are several variations possible:
> 
> - Skipping ISO and booting HDD images directly over PXE. Removes the
> possibility of making real CD/DVD discs and virtual machine booting.
> - ISOLINUX ISO with bootable floppy image(s) that can access the ISO for
> storage of larger files. Adds at least one level of maintenance.
> - ISOLINUX ISO with HDD image(s). Adds at least one level of
> maintenance.
> 
> Anyone else using a similar method to boot machines to DOS for
> maintenance and troubleshooting? Some other method?
> 
I would go with just booting the HDD image... you can wrap that image in
an ISO and burn it to disc, but almost no BIOS will boot it in my
experience.  At that point you're better off burning
isolinux+memdisk+the HDD image to CD.

	-hpa

-- 
H. Peter Anvin, Intel Open Source Technology Center
I work for Intel.  I don't speak on their behalf.