Syslinux - Jul 2011 - Failing to get pxechain.com working, SYSLINUX 3.86.

To start, I know I need to upgrade SYSLINUX, but since we are using the 
CMenu's it's not that easy of an upgrade. I have been (slowly) working 
on a new iPXE/pxelinux 4.04 install that I am migrating to.

However, I have an interesting problem. Using any of the examples I have 
seen, I can not make pxechain.com work.

"pxechain.com ::/path/pxelinux.0"
"pxechain.com ::path/pxelinux.0"
"pxechain.com 192.168.1.12::/path/pxelinux.0"
"pxechain.com 192.168.1.12::path/pxelinux.0"

Having seen a thread where it appears pxechain.com is interchangeable, I 
tried the one from 4.04, with no difference.

I escape from my CMenu to the boot prompt:

boot: pxechain.com 192.168.1.12::path/pxelinux.0

and it appeared nothing happened, assuming it was a vmware issue, I 
tried on a few hardware based systems with the same results.

Now, for the interesting part:  I got distracted, walked away for 15 
minutes, came back and found:

boot: pxechain.com 192.168.1.12::path/pxelinux.0
Could not find kernel image: 67.215.65.132::path/pxelinux.0
boot:
Booting from local disk ...
(etc)

I have repeated this with all the above examples, it takes roughly 10 
minutes before getting that response. in tftpd's xferlog nothing is 
logged until it gets the above, then it logs pxechain.com

I'm running hpa's tftpd on FreeBSD 8.2 x86, this is an old working 
setup, all other apps working great, I just have one specific app that 
needs to be launched with it's own path, I have tested this specifically 
with pxelinux.0 from 3.86/4.04 in path/ to verify it wasn't the programs 
fault. also server address is 192.168.1.12, and is not multihomed

Now, 67.215.65.132 is opendns' landing page for all their redirects for 
invalid domains/etc. Anyone have any clues as to whats going wrong here? 
Why is opendns' landing page coming up? is pxechain attempting to do a 
dns lookup that is failing? I do have opendns' servers setup as
forwarders for my local dns servers.

I haven't tried to rebuild pxechain.com with debug support as I don't 
know anything about assembly, and I'm not sure compiling it under 
FreeBSD is going to work (assuming it should?!?!)..

Besides sniffing/debug build of pxechain, any other suggestions? I will 
work on trying to get something setup to do this in case it's the only 
response.

-Andrew

On Tue, Jul 26, 2011 at 21:15, Andrew Stuart <andrew at shopcusa.com>
wrote:
> To start, I know I need to upgrade SYSLINUX, but since we are using the
> CMenu's it's not that easy of an upgrade. I have been (slowly)
working on a
> new iPXE/pxelinux 4.04 install that I am migrating to.
cmenu rather than menu.c32/vesameu.c32?  Have you tried just
rebuilding it in the new version?
> However, I have an interesting problem. Using any of the examples I have
> seen, I can not make pxechain.com work.
>
> "pxechain.com ::/path/pxelinux.0"
> "pxechain.com ::path/pxelinux.0"
> "pxechain.com 192.168.1.12::/path/pxelinux.0"
> "pxechain.com 192.168.1.12::path/pxelinux.0"
>
> Having seen a thread where it appears pxechain.com is interchangeable, I
> tried the one from 4.04, with no difference.
The reason for this is that it only interprets the command line then
makes a PXE API call.
> I escape from my CMenu to the boot prompt:
>
> boot: pxechain.com 192.168.1.12::path/pxelinux.0
>
> and it appeared nothing happened, assuming it was a vmware issue, I tried
on
> a few hardware based systems with the same results.
1) Could you reference "a few hardware based systems" (including
applicable BIOS/firmware)?

2) Which VMware product?  Which NIC?

3) Could you try without loading your CMenu system in case it's
corrupting something?
> Now, for the interesting part: ?I got distracted, walked away for 15
> minutes, came back and found:
>
> boot: pxechain.com 192.168.1.12::path/pxelinux.0
> Could not find kernel image: 67.215.65.132::path/pxelinux.0
> boot:
> Booting from local disk ...
> (etc)
>
> I have repeated this with all the above examples, it takes roughly 10
> minutes before getting that response. in tftpd's xferlog nothing is
logged
> until it gets the above, then it logs pxechain.com
>
> I'm running hpa's tftpd on FreeBSD 8.2 x86, this is an old working
setup,
> all other apps working great, I just have one specific app that needs to be
> launched with it's own path, I have tested this specifically with
pxelinux.0
> from 3.86/4.04 in path/ to verify it wasn't the programs fault. also
server
> address is 192.168.1.12, and is not multihomed
>
> Now, 67.215.65.132 is opendns' landing page for all their redirects for
> invalid domains/etc. Anyone have any clues as to whats going wrong here?
Why
> is opendns' landing page coming up? is pxechain attempting to do a dns
> lookup that is failing? I do have opendns' servers setup as
> forwarders for my local dns servers.
>
> I haven't tried to rebuild pxechain.com with debug support as I
don't know
> anything about assembly, and I'm not sure compiling it under FreeBSD is
> going to work (assuming it should?!?!)..
>
> Besides sniffing/debug build of pxechain, any other suggestions? I will
work
> on trying to get something setup to do this in case it's the only
response.
Another is pxechn.c32.  I've implemented basic functionality however I
haven't received any feedback.  By default, it manipulates the
parameters in memory and loads the new NBP without the PXE RESTART
call but with an extra parameter can be a larger replacement for
pxechain.com.

-- 
-Gene