Syslinux - Dec 2013 - PXELINUX [BIOS] 6.02 - Upgrade to 6.02 from 4.07 introduces local boot regression

Hello All, this is my first post so I'll try to be as verbose as possible.

We have a PXE deployment server serving mostly fujitsu RX300 rack mount
servers with Intel 82575EB Gigabit Ethernet Controllers onboard. I recently
upgraded from version 4.07 to version 6.02 and, without making any edits to
my default menu, immediately noticed a regression. I use vesamenu.c32 to
present a menu to the user which starts with something like this:

default vesamenu.c32
    prompt 0

    menu title Host Provisioning Tool
    menu INCLUDE pxelinux.cfg/graphics.conf
    MENU AUTOBOOT Starting Local System in # seconds
    MENU BACKGROUND splash.jpg

    label bootlocal
      menu label ^Boot This Host
      menu default
      localboot 0
      timeout 80

Prior to upgrading to pxelinux 6.02 If you did nothing for 8 seconds the
system would boot from the local disk. Now the system will hang after the
timeout. The only visual difference I can discern is that when the system
properly boots I see a message briefly indicating the PXE boot rom had
exited properly. Now with version 6.02 It hangs just before that.

Another datapoint, I reverted back to version 6.01 and the problem seems to
be resolved.
Final datapoint, if you hit "enter" instead of waiting for the timeout
(using version 6.02) it will boot properly

My basic question is what is right place to report this issue to the
project?

Best regards,

Cory Fair

On Mon, Dec 9, 2013 at 3:27 PM, Cory Fair <cory.fair at gmail.com>
wrote:
> Hello All, this is my first post so I'll try to be as verbose as
possible.
>
> We have a PXE deployment server serving mostly fujitsu RX300 rack mount
> servers with Intel 82575EB Gigabit Ethernet Controllers onboard. I recently
> upgraded from version 4.07 to version 6.02 and, without making any edits to
> my default menu, immediately noticed a regression. I use vesamenu.c32 to
> present a menu to the user which starts with something like this:
>
> default vesamenu.c32
>     prompt 0
>
>     menu title Host Provisioning Tool
>     menu INCLUDE pxelinux.cfg/graphics.conf
>     MENU AUTOBOOT Starting Local System in # seconds
>     MENU BACKGROUND splash.jpg
>
>     label bootlocal
>       menu label ^Boot This Host
>       menu default
>       localboot 0
>       timeout 80
Reflowing for clarity of scope:

default vesamenu.c32
prompt 0
timeout 80

menu title Host Provisioning Tool
menu INCLUDE pxelinux.cfg/graphics.conf
MENU AUTOBOOT Starting Local System in # seconds
MENU BACKGROUND splash.jpg

label bootlocal
    menu label ^Boot This Host
    menu default
    localboot 0



Where's pxelinux.cfg/graphics.conf?
> Prior to upgrading to pxelinux 6.02 If you did nothing for 8 seconds the
> system would boot from the local disk. Now the system will hang after the
> timeout. The only visual difference I can discern is that when the system
> properly boots I see a message briefly indicating the PXE boot rom had
> exited properly. Now with version 6.02 It hangs just before that.
>
> Another datapoint, I reverted back to version 6.01 and the problem seems to
> be resolved.
> Final datapoint, if you hit "enter" instead of waiting for the
timeout
> (using version 6.02) it will boot properly
Rather curious.  What if you dropped the timeout to 0.8-2.0 seconds or
even 0.2 seconds?  I believe I've seen some quirky behavior in other
PXE stacks where they act up after about 3 seconds.  It's as if
they've sometimes arbitrarily decided that the PXE services won't live
longer (since you should have a real kernel).
> My basic question is what is right place to report this issue to the
> project?
I'd say the list is an excellent place to start.  If it's not a
duplicate report of an existing bug at http://bugzilla.syslinux.com
nor already resolved by any of the patches that aren't pulled into the
code base, then it will likely need to be filed there

-- 
-Gene

On Mon, Dec 9, 2013 at 8:05 PM, Gene Cumm <gene.cumm at gmail.com>
wrote:
> On Mon, Dec 9, 2013 at 3:27 PM, Cory Fair <cory.fair at gmail.com>
wrote:
>> Hello All, this is my first post so I'll try to be as verbose as
possible.
>>
>> We have a PXE deployment server serving mostly fujitsu RX300 rack mount
>> servers with Intel 82575EB Gigabit Ethernet Controllers onboard. I
recently
>> upgraded from version 4.07 to version 6.02 and, without making any
edits to
>> my default menu, immediately noticed a regression. I use vesamenu.c32
to
>> present a menu to the user which starts with something like this:
>>
>> default vesamenu.c32
>>     prompt 0
>>
>>     menu title Host Provisioning Tool
>>     menu INCLUDE pxelinux.cfg/graphics.conf
>>     MENU AUTOBOOT Starting Local System in # seconds
>>     MENU BACKGROUND splash.jpg
>>
>>     label bootlocal
>>       menu label ^Boot This Host
>>       menu default
>>       localboot 0
>>       timeout 80
>
> Reflowing for clarity of scope:
>
> default vesamenu.c32
> prompt 0
> timeout 80
>
> menu title Host Provisioning Tool
> menu INCLUDE pxelinux.cfg/graphics.conf
> MENU AUTOBOOT Starting Local System in # seconds
> MENU BACKGROUND splash.jpg
>
> label bootlocal
>     menu label ^Boot This Host
>     menu default
>     localboot 0
>
>
>
> Where's pxelinux.cfg/graphics.conf?
>
>> Prior to upgrading to pxelinux 6.02 If you did nothing for 8 seconds
the
>> system would boot from the local disk. Now the system will hang after
the
>> timeout. The only visual difference I can discern is that when the
system
>> properly boots I see a message briefly indicating the PXE boot rom had
>> exited properly. Now with version 6.02 It hangs just before that.
>>
>> Another datapoint, I reverted back to version 6.01 and the problem
seems to
>> be resolved.
>> Final datapoint, if you hit "enter" instead of waiting for
the timeout
>> (using version 6.02) it will boot properly
>
> Rather curious.  What if you dropped the timeout to 0.8-2.0 seconds or
> even 0.2 seconds?  I believe I've seen some quirky behavior in other
> PXE stacks where they act up after about 3 seconds.  It's as if
> they've sometimes arbitrarily decided that the PXE services won't
live
> longer (since you should have a real kernel).
>
>> My basic question is what is right place to report this issue to the
>> project?
>
> I'd say the list is an excellent place to start.  If it's not a
> duplicate report of an existing bug at http://bugzilla.syslinux.com
> nor already resolved by any of the patches that aren't pulled into the
> code base, then it will likely need to be filed there
>
> --
> -Gene
See also http://www.syslinux.org/wiki/index.php/Hardware_Compatibility#LOCALBOOT

-- 
-Gene

> upgraded from version 4.07 to version 6.02 and, without making any edits to
> my default menu, immediately noticed a regression. I use vesamenu.c32 to
> present a menu to the user which starts with something like this:
> 
> default vesamenu.c32
>     prompt 0
> 
>     menu title Host Provisioning Tool
>     menu INCLUDE pxelinux.cfg/graphics.conf
>     MENU AUTOBOOT Starting Local System in # seconds
>     MENU BACKGROUND splash.jpg
> 
>     label bootlocal
>       menu label ^Boot This Host
>       menu default
>       localboot 0
>       timeout 80
> 
> Prior to upgrading to pxelinux 6.02 If you did nothing for 8 seconds the
> system would boot from the local disk. Now the system will hang after the
> timeout. The only visual difference I can discern is that when the system
> properly boots I see a message briefly indicating the PXE boot rom had
> exited properly. Now with version 6.02 It hangs just before that.
> 
> Another datapoint, I reverted back to version 6.01 and the problem seems to
> be resolved.
> Final datapoint, if you hit "enter" instead of waiting for the
timeout
> (using version 6.02) it will boot properly
> 
> My basic question is what is right place to report this issue to the
> project?
 
I would say that this mailing list is a good starting point to report 
the issue :).

Although there seems to be some kind of regression, I'd like to 
suggest some potential workarounds, at least for testing purposes.

First, please be sure you are using all C32 modules from the exact 
same Syslinux version, including ldlinux.c32 and all lib*.c32 library 
modules, all located somewhere under the "./bios/" directory path of 
Syslinux 6.02.

Regarding Syslinux 6.02; is that from kernel.org or from other 
source? Are you using built-in official upstream binary files, or are 
you rebuilding them from source?

After the official release of Syslinux 6.02, there were some patches. 
I would suggest trying the current Syslinux package from Arch Linux, 
which includes some of those recent patches already. The patches were 
not specifically related to LOCALBOOT, but I'd think it's worth a 
test anyway.

Instead of 'LOCALBOOT 0', have you tried the localboot.c32 module?

I would also suggest testing a slight change in your default 
configuration file. Instead of:
 default vesamenu.c32
I would suggest using:
 UI vesamenu.c32
 DEFAULT bootlocal
 # where 'bootlocal' is your LABEL for 'LOCALBOOT'.

Reporting the results for each potential workaround might help narrow 
down the problem.

TIA,
Ady.

Gene, Ady thanks for your suggestions.
>> What if you dropped the timeout to 0.8-2.0 seconds or even 0.2 seconds?
I tried setting the delay to 2 seconds and 0.2 with no change in behavior.
>> First, please be sure you are using all C32 modules from the exact same
Syslinux version, including ldlinux.c32 and all lib*.c32 library modules,
all located somewhere under the "./bios/" directory path of Syslinux
6.02.

I went ahead and re-copied the "./bios/" 6.02 files (compiled from
source
from kernel.org). Just for sanity's sake. Below is the current list of my
tftpboot dir.

vmshe-dhcp ---> /tftpboot/linux
$ ls -l
total 588
-rwxrwxrwx   1 root root 123300 Dec 10 10:39 ldlinux.c32
-rwxrwxrwx   1 root root 187700 Dec 10 10:39 libcom32.c32
-rwxrwxrwx   1 root root  26468 Dec 10 10:40 libutil.c32
-rwxrwxrwx   1 root root   4856 Dec 10 10:40 linux.c32
-rwxrwxrwx   1 root root  19817 Sep 25 10:29 linux.jpg
-rwxr-xr-x   1 root root   1240 Dec 10 10:58 localboot.c32
-rwxrwxrwx   1 root root  10200 Dec 10 10:40 mboot.c32
-rwxrwxrwx   1 root root  26140 Dec 10 10:41 memdisk
-rwxrwxrwx   1 root root  29148 Dec 10 10:41 menu.c32
-rwxrwxrwx   1 root root  42817 Dec 10 10:42 pxelinux.0
drwxrwxrwx.  2 root root   4096 Dec  9 14:20 pxelinux.cfg
drwxrwxrwx  74 root root   8192 Dec  6 09:31 pxe_repo
-rwxrwxrwx   1 root root  48732 May 15  2012 splash.jpg
-rwxrwxrwx   1 root root  29668 Dec 10 10:43 vesamenu.c32
-rwxrwxrwx   1 root root  11708 Dec  4 16:23 wimboot

Behavior still persists.
>> Instead of 'LOCALBOOT 0', have you tried the localboot.c32
module?
Tried this out as follows:

UI vesamenu.c32
DEFAULT bootlocal
    prompt 0

    menu title Host Provisioning Tool
    menu INCLUDE pxelinux.cfg/graphics.conf
    MENU AUTOBOOT Starting Local System in # seconds
    MENU BACKGROUND splash.jpg

label bootlocal
      menu label ^Boot This Host
      KERNEL localboot.c32
      timeout 80

and I see the following output and a hang after timeout:

"Booting from local disk...
E46EB:0000"
>> After the official release of Syslinux 6.02, there were some patches.
:-) being in QA, as a profession, my general experience is to only apply
patches when they are known to fix issues you are looking for. I'm willing
to give it a shot though just as a datapoint. Is there a link directly to
the archlinux syslinux files or do I need to install archlinux to get the
files out?

Regards,

Cory




On Tue, Dec 10, 2013 at 2:36 AM, Ady <ady-sf at hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> > upgraded from version 4.07 to version 6.02 and, without making any
edits
> to
> > my default menu, immediately noticed a regression. I use vesamenu.c32
to
> > present a menu to the user which starts with something like this:
> >
> > default vesamenu.c32
> >     prompt 0
> >
> >     menu title Host Provisioning Tool
> >     menu INCLUDE pxelinux.cfg/graphics.conf
> >     MENU AUTOBOOT Starting Local System in # seconds
> >     MENU BACKGROUND splash.jpg
> >
> >     label bootlocal
> >       menu label ^Boot This Host
> >       menu default
> >       localboot 0
> >       timeout 80
> >
> > Prior to upgrading to pxelinux 6.02 If you did nothing for 8 seconds
the
> > system would boot from the local disk. Now the system will hang after
the
> > timeout. The only visual difference I can discern is that when the
system
> > properly boots I see a message briefly indicating the PXE boot rom had
> > exited properly. Now with version 6.02 It hangs just before that.
> >
> > Another datapoint, I reverted back to version 6.01 and the problem
seems
> to
> > be resolved.
> > Final datapoint, if you hit "enter" instead of waiting for
the timeout
> > (using version 6.02) it will boot properly
> >
> > My basic question is what is right place to report this issue to the
> > project?
>
> I would say that this mailing list is a good starting point to report
> the issue :).
>
> Although there seems to be some kind of regression, I'd like to
> suggest some potential workarounds, at least for testing purposes.
>
> First, please be sure you are using all C32 modules from the exact
> same Syslinux version, including ldlinux.c32 and all lib*.c32 library
> modules, all located somewhere under the "./bios/" directory path
of
> Syslinux 6.02.
>
> Regarding Syslinux 6.02; is that from kernel.org or from other
> source? Are you using built-in official upstream binary files, or are
> you rebuilding them from source?
>
> After the official release of Syslinux 6.02, there were some patches.
> I would suggest trying the current Syslinux package from Arch Linux,
> which includes some of those recent patches already. The patches were
> not specifically related to LOCALBOOT, but I'd think it's worth a
> test anyway.
>
> Instead of 'LOCALBOOT 0', have you tried the localboot.c32 module?
>
> I would also suggest testing a slight change in your default
> configuration file. Instead of:
>  default vesamenu.c32
> I would suggest using:
>  UI vesamenu.c32
>  DEFAULT bootlocal
>  # where 'bootlocal' is your LABEL for 'LOCALBOOT'.
>
> Reporting the results for each potential workaround might help narrow
> down the problem.
>
> TIA,
> Ady.
>
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