Syslinux - Mar 2019 - syslinux-6.03 failed to boot ESXI 6.7

Hello, list,

   I'm buiding syslinux6.3 with ESXI6.7, but it says,

  * failed to load COM32 File
http://172.16.234.112/images/esxi67/mboot.c32*

Here is my config:

------------------

label esxi
  menu label ESXI-6.7 ^Installer
  kernel http://172.16.234.112/images/esxi67/mboot.c32
  append -c http://172.16.234.112/images/esxi67/boot.cfg
--------------------

Seeing from http access log, mboot.c32 was loading successfully.
172.16.235.99 - - [12/Mar/2019:17:59:15 +0800] "GET
/images/esxi67/mboot.c32 HTTP/1.0" 200 90088 "-"
"Syslinux/6.03"

-------------------------

I read from Common problems of docs, and rename mboot.c32 to mboot
accordingly, it raises the same error.

But the way, where is the correct way of booting from local drive?

* localboot 0X80 * or -1 does not work.

Thanks,

Correction, *But *the way  should be *By* the way.

Plus, syslinux-4.05 (pxelinux.0 , Shipped with Centos7.5-1804) with ESXI
6.7 works, but I can use TFTP only. Which makes large initrd files download
pretty slow and fail.


On Tue, Mar 12, 2019 at 6:02 PM luckydog xf <luckydogxf at gmail.com>
wrote:
> Hello, list,
>
>    I'm buiding syslinux6.3 with ESXI6.7, but it says,
>
>   * failed to load COM32 File
> http://172.16.234.112/images/esxi67/mboot.c32*
>
> Here is my config:
>
> ------------------
>
> label esxi
>   menu label ESXI-6.7 ^Installer
>   kernel http://172.16.234.112/images/esxi67/mboot.c32
>   append -c http://172.16.234.112/images/esxi67/boot.cfg
> --------------------
>
> Seeing from http access log, mboot.c32 was loading successfully.
> 172.16.235.99 - - [12/Mar/2019:17:59:15 +0800] "GET
> /images/esxi67/mboot.c32 HTTP/1.0" 200 90088 "-"
"Syslinux/6.03"
>
> -------------------------
>
> I read from Common problems of docs, and rename mboot.c32 to mboot
> accordingly, it raises the same error.
>
> But the way, where is the correct way of booting from local drive?
>
> * localboot 0X80 * or -1 does not work.
>
> Thanks,
>
>

> Hello, list,
> 
>    I'm buiding syslinux6.3 with ESXI6.7, but it says,
> 
>   * failed to load COM32 File
> http://172.16.234.112/images/esxi67/mboot.c32*
> 
> Here is my config:
> 
> ------------------
> 
> label esxi
>   menu label ESXI-6.7 ^Installer
>   kernel http://172.16.234.112/images/esxi67/mboot.c32
>   append -c http://172.16.234.112/images/esxi67/boot.cfg
> --------------------
> 
> Seeing from http access log, mboot.c32 was loading successfully.
> 172.16.235.99 - - [12/Mar/2019:17:59:15 +0800] "GET
> /images/esxi67/mboot.c32 HTTP/1.0" 200 90088 "-"
"Syslinux/6.03"
 
 
IIRC, VMware creates its own "mboot.c32" module, and its source code
is
not published.

Since the c32 modules must match the same version of the bootloader 
file, users usually fail to load VMware's mboot.c32 module when using 
some version of Syslinux that is incompatible with the module. 
Therefore, it is only "natural" to see upstream Syslinux v.6.03
failing
to use that VMware's module.

Additionally, if users attempt to use the official mboot.c32 module 
from Syslinux as if it was the module from VMware, it will certainly 
fail on every occasion, simply because these are different modules, in 
spite of having the same name.

VMware's mboot.c32 is probably from around v.4.05 or even from 3.8x; 
pxechain.com and mostly pxechn.c32 come to mind, considering the "-c" 
option being used in order to load some cfg file. This "-c" option has
nothing to do with the official upstream Syslinux's mboot.c32 module.

Giving that the source code of VMware's mboot.c32 has not been 
published (AFAIK), there is nothing that upstream Syslinux developers 
can do/say about it.

Regards,
Ady.