Syslinux - Apr 2008 - Anyone interested in scripts for multiple PXELinux configs in a single TFTP directory

Dear syslinux list members,

I'm a newbie on this list. I hope I don't offend anyone by being
slightly off-topic.

I had the problem of wanting multiple Linux distros (i.c. Debian,
Ubuntu, OpenSuSE, SuSE, RedHat, CentOS, Fedora) installable from a
single PXELinux menu, so I wrote a couple of scripts that do what is
described below.
The question is whether anyone would be interested in having the
scripts, and if so from CVS or just posted?

     1. A script scans the entire mirror tree for files that 
        
              * are not too big and not too small 
                
              * contain ASCII 
                
              * are parseable by a PXELinux config parser 
                
        and they list the selected files. 
        This is a lengthy operation, intended for being used only during
        server setup.
        
     2. An administrator manually selects some of the PXElinux files
        found, and discards the others. 
        
     3. A script visits all the selected PXELinux configs, and for each
        determines where the smallest parent directory is that contains
        the files itself plus all kernels, initrds and other files that
        are mentioned in it. It copies that directory to the TFTP tree. 
        
     4. The same script determines from the pathname to the PXELinux
        configfile what distro, version and architecture it is meant
        for, and copies it to a second tree in the TFTP tree that holds
        only config files (and not kernels etc.) and is sorted by these
        properties. 
        
     5. Again the same script modifies the last copy it made of the
        PXELinux config in such a way that paths to kernels, ramdisks
        etc. point into the first tree. 
        
     6. Another script scans the hierarchy of PXELinux config scripts in
        the TFTP directory and for each directory it finds creates a
        menu containing an entry for each PXELinux config file in the
        directory, as well as for subdirs and parent dirs. 
        

This way, we have a TFTP menu tree that is almost completely generated
from the mirror itself, and enables us to boot into many of our distros.
(Some don't work because they need extra boot parameters.)

The scripts are a bit primitive, as I'm not a Perl or Bash wizard, but
they do work.


Best Regards,
Jurjen

-- 
Jurjen Bokma <j.bokma at cs.rug.nl>

Jurjen Bokma wrote:
> 
> I'm a newbie on this list. I hope I don't offend anyone by being
> slightly off-topic.
> 
Quite on the contrary... very on topic!

This is a *very* cool set of tools.  I would love to have someone try 
them out and see how well they work.

As far as making them available, it would probably be best to have 
tarballs available as well as CVS access.

	-hpa

If you like to contribute you can also post some informations in the 
wiki. I guess people might be interested in it. :)

Jurjen Bokma wrote:
> The question is whether anyone would be interested in having the
> scripts, and if so from CVS or just posted?
of course; would love to put them into the debian syslinux package as
examples. please give an url where i can fetch or a repository to pull from.

-- 
Address:        Daniel Baumann, Burgunderstrasse 3, CH-4562 Biberist
Email:          daniel.baumann at panthera-systems.net
Internet:       http://people.panthera-systems.net/~daniel-baumann/

I rewrote parts of the HOWTO this morning, and put a link to the tarball
in it, so all you need now is
http://www.cs.rug.nl/~jurjen/iwi-howtos/linux/PXELinux-menu-scripts-Manual

'gards,
Jurjen

On Sat, 2008-04-26 at 00:38 +0200, Jurjen Bokma wrote:
> Dear syslinux list members,
> 
> I'm a newbie on this list. I hope I don't offend anyone by being
> slightly off-topic.
> 
> I had the problem of wanting multiple Linux distros (i.c. Debian,
> Ubuntu, OpenSuSE, SuSE, RedHat, CentOS, Fedora) installable from a
> single PXELinux menu, so I wrote a couple of scripts that do what is
> described below.
> The question is whether anyone would be interested in having the
> scripts, and if so from CVS or just posted?
> 
>      1. A script scans the entire mirror tree for files that 
>         
>               * are not too big and not too small 
>                 
>               * contain ASCII 
>                 
>               * are parseable by a PXELinux config parser 
>                 
>         and they list the selected files. 
>         This is a lengthy operation, intended for being used only during
>         server setup.
>         
>      2. An administrator manually selects some of the PXElinux files
>         found, and discards the others. 
>         
>      3. A script visits all the selected PXELinux configs, and for each
>         determines where the smallest parent directory is that contains
>         the files itself plus all kernels, initrds and other files that
>         are mentioned in it. It copies that directory to the TFTP tree. 
>         
>      4. The same script determines from the pathname to the PXELinux
>         configfile what distro, version and architecture it is meant
>         for, and copies it to a second tree in the TFTP tree that holds
>         only config files (and not kernels etc.) and is sorted by these
>         properties. 
>         
>      5. Again the same script modifies the last copy it made of the
>         PXELinux config in such a way that paths to kernels, ramdisks
>         etc. point into the first tree. 
>         
>      6. Another script scans the hierarchy of PXELinux config scripts in
>         the TFTP directory and for each directory it finds creates a
>         menu containing an entry for each PXELinux config file in the
>         directory, as well as for subdirs and parent dirs. 
>         
> 
> This way, we have a TFTP menu tree that is almost completely generated
> from the mirror itself, and enables us to boot into many of our distros.
> (Some don't work because they need extra boot parameters.)
> 
> The scripts are a bit primitive, as I'm not a Perl or Bash wizard, but
> they do work.
> 
> 
> Best Regards,
> Jurjen
> 
-- 
Jurjen Bokma <j.bokma at cs.rug.nl>

Hallo, Jurjen,

Du meintest am 27.04.08 zum Thema Re: [syslinux] Anyone interested in scripts
for multiple PXELinux	configs in a	single TFTP directory:
> I rewrote parts of the HOWTO this morning, and put a link to the
> tarball in it, so all you need now is
> http://www.cs.rug.nl/~jurjen/iwi-howtos/linux/PXELinux-menu-scripts-
> Manual
Looks fine - thank you!

Viele Gruesse!
Helmut