Syslinux - Apr 2009 - Strange behaviour when using vesamenu.c32 and PXELinux

Hello,

I was wondering if anyone had any ideas and perhaps solutions around an
error i've been experiencing when using vesamenu.c32 (and the other
non-vesa menu too).
I have tried three different versions (the latest three) of pxelinux and
the other files. The problem exists in all of them.

My setup is pretty simple, filename defined in dhcpd, boot up from pxe,
starts requesting configs, and ends up fetching pxelinux.cfg/default.
(All good)
in this file i only do "include menu/main.cfg" which is the file i do
everything in.

The menu shows up, and everything seems to work perfectly, i can go in
and out of submenus, it all looks good.
But heres the catch: In some cases (on some computers), when finding the
choice i want and pressing <enter>, the menu just freezes.
It does not start downloading the kernel or initrd, it just freezes.
Ctrl+alt+delete does nothing when this happens.

e.g, one of the entries look like this:
LABEL livedistro
MENU LABEL ^Live
TEXT HELP
Current livedistro
ENDTEXT
KERNEL live/vmlinuz1
APPEND initrd=live/live.img

On some computers, selecting this entry (and others) and pressing enter
halts the menu as explained above.
But, if i exit vesamenu (by pressing ESC) to end up at the "boot:"
prompt, and type "livedistro" (the label) of this or other items, it
works perfectly.

So in the end, just the menu has this problem, typing the label (or the
command) at the boot:-prompt works when the menu doesnt.

Any ideas?

-Marius

> On some computers, selecting this entry (and others) and pressing enter
> halts the menu as explained above.
> But, if i exit vesamenu (by pressing ESC) to end up at the
"boot:"
> prompt, and type "livedistro" (the label) of this or other items,
it
> works perfectly.
>
> So in the end, just the menu has this problem, typing the label (or the
> command) at the boot:-prompt works when the menu doesnt.
>
> Any ideas?
Hello Marius,

is this happening on PC's with Marvell Yukon NIC's and/or on FSC
PC's
with Bootix Firmware. These modells are known to have buggy PXE
implementations. I know about various modells that have problems showing
a PXE mMenu at all or that freeze after a short time period (lets say round
about 15 seconds)


Peter Leenders

Marius Eikenes wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> I was wondering if anyone had any ideas and perhaps solutions around an
> error i've been experiencing when using vesamenu.c32 (and the other
> non-vesa menu too).
> I have tried three different versions (the latest three) of pxelinux and
> the other files. The problem exists in all of them.
> 
You didn't say which versions.  In particular, this *might* be a 
manifestation of a problem that was recently fixed, so it would be nice 
if you could try out 3.80-pre3 and see if that resolves the issue for you.
> But heres the catch: In some cases (on some computers), when finding the
> choice i want and pressing <enter>, the menu just freezes.
> It does not start downloading the kernel or initrd, it just freezes.
> Ctrl+alt+delete does nothing when this happens.
Anything in common between the computers that work and the computers 
that fail?  BIOS versions?  NICs?  Chipset?

	-hpa

Could this be mismatched versions of pxelinux.0 and [vesa]menu.c32?
Please use matching versions, if you aren't already, though this is a
fairly common forgotten step.  - Shao

-----Original Message-----
From: syslinux-bounces at zytor.com [mailto:syslinux-bounces at zytor.com] On
Behalf Of Marius Eikenes
Sent: Wednesday, April 29, 2009 07:30
To: For discussion of Syslinux and tftp-hpa
Subject: [syslinux] Strange behaviour when using vesamenu.c32 and
PXELinux

Hello,

I was wondering if anyone had any ideas and perhaps solutions around an
error i've been experiencing when using vesamenu.c32 (and the other
non-vesa menu too).
I have tried three different versions (the latest three) of pxelinux and
the other files. The problem exists in all of them.

My setup is pretty simple, filename defined in dhcpd, boot up from pxe,
starts requesting configs, and ends up fetching pxelinux.cfg/default.
(All good)
in this file i only do "include menu/main.cfg" which is the file i do
everything in.

The menu shows up, and everything seems to work perfectly, i can go in
and out of submenus, it all looks good.
But heres the catch: In some cases (on some computers), when finding the
choice i want and pressing <enter>, the menu just freezes.
It does not start downloading the kernel or initrd, it just freezes.
Ctrl+alt+delete does nothing when this happens.

e.g, one of the entries look like this:
LABEL livedistro
MENU LABEL ^Live
TEXT HELP
Current livedistro
ENDTEXT
KERNEL live/vmlinuz1
APPEND initrd=live/live.img

On some computers, selecting this entry (and others) and pressing enter
halts the menu as explained above.
But, if i exit vesamenu (by pressing ESC) to end up at the "boot:"
prompt, and type "livedistro" (the label) of this or other items, it
works perfectly.

So in the end, just the menu has this problem, typing the label (or the
command) at the boot:-prompt works when the menu doesnt.

Any ideas?

-Marius




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