Syslinux - Jan 2006 - pxelinux.0 hangs after it is downloaded.

Hello Everyone,

    In short, I have the following questions:
        Is there a known problem with PXE booting and LinuxBIOS?
        Will pxelinux.0 not work with a serial console?
        Is there a way to convert pxelinux.0 into an ELF file?

The Long Version:
    I am working on installing Rocks Cluter distribution on a LinuxNetworx
cluster. The hardware was donated to my college, and the CS department is trying
to get it running using Open Source Software only. There are three things that
have been making my life difficult:
    -Nodes have no CD-Rom, Floppy, or Graphics (Only outside connections are
ethernet and serial console)
    -Nodes have old version of etherboot which does not support PXE
    -Nodes use LinuxBIOS and not a traditional PC BIOS
   

Obviously, because the nodes have no CD-Rom or floppy drives, network booting is
my only option. I have resolved the second point by chain booting etherboot. The
old version downloads an ELF formatted version of Etherboot 5.2 which has ELF,
PXE and NBI support. My problem is that when I tell the 5.2 version to load
pxelinux.0 it downloads the file and then just sits there. If I tell it to boot
an ELF formatted memtest86 the file is downloaded and executed perfectly, which
makes me think that the LinuxBIOS has some problem with the PXE file format. Is
this true?

The nodes also use a serial console. There is no graphics card installed. Is
this a problem for PXE? I have added the console=ttyS0,96008n1 to the append
line in /tftpboot/pxelinux/pxelinux.cfg/default file but that made no
difference.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. 

Thank you,

-David

I read more of the Syslinux website and found the 'serial' and
'console'
configuration directives.. I tried them but still to no avail.. even 
putting a 'say hello' line wont produce output from a booting machine.. 
I'm stumped. Here is the pxelinux.cft/default file:


    serial 0
    console 0
    say hello
    default ks
    prompt 1

    label local
            localboot 0

    label ks
            kernel vmlinuz
            append ks initrd=initrd.img ramdisk_size=150000 lang   
devfs=nomount hea\
    dless pxe kssendmac selinux=0


And here is the output from a booting machine:

Etherboot 5.4.1 (GPL) http://etherboot.org
Drivers: EEPRO100   Images: NBI ELF PXE   Exports: PXE
Protocols: DHCP TFTP
Relocating _text from: [00010210,00023620) to [7feecbf0,7ff00000)
Boot from (N)etwork or (Q)uit?

Probing pci nic...
[eepro100]Ethernet addr: 00:30:48:22:B7:3F
Searching for server (DHCP).....
Me: 192.168.1.253, DHCP: 192.168.1.1, TFTP: 192.168.1.1, Gateway 192.168.1.1
Loading 192.168.1.1:pxelinux.0 ...(PXE)........done
(Machine HANGS HERE!)

Any ideas?

-David


David T. Pheasant wrote:
>Hello Everyone,
>
>    In short, I have the following questions:
>        Is there a known problem with PXE booting and LinuxBIOS?
>        Will pxelinux.0 not work with a serial console?
>        Is there a way to convert pxelinux.0 into an ELF file?
>
>The Long Version:
>    I am working on installing Rocks Cluter distribution on a LinuxNetworx
cluster. The hardware was donated to my college, and the CS department is trying
to get it running using Open Source Software only. There are three things that
have been making my life difficult:
>    -Nodes have no CD-Rom, Floppy, or Graphics (Only outside connections are
ethernet and serial console)
>    -Nodes have old version of etherboot which does not support PXE
>    -Nodes use LinuxBIOS and not a traditional PC BIOS
>   
>
>Obviously, because the nodes have no CD-Rom or floppy drives, network
booting is my only option. I have resolved the second point by chain booting
etherboot. The old version downloads an ELF formatted version of Etherboot 5.2
which has ELF, PXE and NBI support. My problem is that when I tell the 5.2
version to load pxelinux.0 it downloads the file and then just sits there. If I
tell it to boot an ELF formatted memtest86 the file is downloaded and executed
perfectly, which makes me think that the LinuxBIOS has some problem with the PXE
file format. Is this true?
>
>The nodes also use a serial console. There is no graphics card installed. Is
this a problem for PXE? I have added the console=ttyS0,96008n1 to the append
line in /tftpboot/pxelinux/pxelinux.cfg/default file but that made no
difference.
>
>Any help would be greatly appreciated. 
>
>Thank you,
>
>-David
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David T. Pheasant wrote:
> Hello Everyone,
> 
>     In short, I have the following questions:
>         Is there a known problem with PXE booting and LinuxBIOS?
Yes, as in "won't work."

	-hpa