[syslinux] SYSLINUX 2.08-pre3 released

H. Peter Anvin
Tue, 25 Nov 2003 05:13:25 -0000

I just found a rather embarrassing bug in PXELINUX -- and what's worse
-- I wrote an email about it and killed it off accidentally :-/

It appears PXELINUX doesn't free its internal socket buffers (it has 32
of them) when it gets an error reply from the server, including "file
not found."  This means it will eventually run out of sockets and "go
deaf."  This hasn't been caught until now simply because PXELINUX
usually uses far less than 32 socket buffers during normal execution.

I have released a syslinux-2.08-pre3 which fixes this bug:

ftp://ftp.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/boot/syslinux/Testing/

At the moment, other than the bug fixes plus "timeoutcmd" that are
already in 2.08-pre3, there is really only one thing on my list for
2.08, which is an API function to "replace bootstrap", which is
something that would allow a very simple comboot program to implement
the "local boot harddisk X partition Y" functionality a lot of people
have asked for.  The internal functionality already exists in syslinux;
it's just a matter of exposing it through an API function.

Anyone who has anything else they'd like to see in 2.08, now is the time
to speak up...

	-hpa