3 replies to this topic

[tondo]

Hi group,

after asking many questions about booting floppys and harddrives via memdisk (thanks for your input) I have another problem.

I have a boot-CD for a linux system. The developers of that system told me, it would be very difficult to boot the system via pxe.

My idea was to boot the CD-ROM as virtual CD-ROM with help of memdisk.

Is there any chance to do this ? How I have to prepare a image file that is recognized as CD-ROM by memdisk ?

Thanks for your answers

[was_jaclaz]

I have a boot-CD for a linux system. The developers of that system told me, it would be very difficult to boot the system via pxe.

My idea was to boot the CD-ROM as virtual CD-ROM with help of memdisk.

I would be curious to know what was the developers' idea about your idea.

Is there any chance to do this ?

YES.
http://homepages.tes...no-answers.html


Before you ask the next question:

Will it work?

the answer to it is:

Most probably NO.

How I have to prepare a image file that is recognized as CD-ROM by memdisk ?

Not really.
A CD-ROM is a .iso image and a .iso image is a CD-ROM.
In other words you just need to dd you CD-ROM to an image.

More generally, sorry, but you miss a logical step.

PXE booting a Linux System involves using pxelinux

pxelinux is part of the syslinux package that includes memdisk.

Part of the PXE booting is devolved to a PXElinux.cfg file, which uses rather obviously a very similar syntax as syslinux/isolinux/memdisk do.

Depending on how the image has been built, it can be booted with .iso mapping (memdisk or grub4dos) or cannot.

Usually the same distro's that can boot from .iso can also boot from PXE, or at least they can be booted from PXE as .iso.

The problem revolves around "would this work if loaded as .iso"?

I am moving this thread to Syslinux section of the board, since it is not anymore connected with "Lan and any other method" which should be read as:
Lan and any other method" BUT:

• grub4dos -> http://www.boot-land...hp?showforum=66
• syslinux,isolinux,pxelinux,extlinux, memdisk -> http://www.boot-land...hp?showforum=92

However the general idea can be gathered from this (grub4dos related) post:
http://www.boot-land...?showtopic=8944
which also gives some advice on how NOT to post about "generic .iso".

Post some details about that distro (you know like the name and the home page ), it is possible that some member already managed to succeed with it.



jaclaz

[Icecube]

I have a boot-CD for a linux system. The developers of that system told me, it would be very difficult to boot the system via pxe.

My idea was to boot the CD-ROM as virtual CD-ROM with help of memdisk.

If it is very difficult to boot the distro via PXE, it means that it needs other files besides a kernel and an initrd. This also means that it is very unlikely that it works with MEMDISK-ISO (special MEMDISK that supports booting from iso's) out of the box. Linux doesn't recognize the memory mapped iso yet (currently no driver exists) and thus it can't find it files.

[tondo]

If it is very difficult to boot the distro via PXE, it means that it needs other files besides a kernel and an initrd. This also means that it is very unlikely that it works with MEMDISK-ISO (special MEMDISK that supports booting from iso's) out of the box. Linux doesn't recognize the memory mapped iso yet (currently no driver exists) and thus it can't find it files.

Thanks for your input in this thread. You are right Icecube, the problem is indeed, that linux doesnt recognizes the memory mapped iso. In this distro the systems looks for an installation medium like CD-ROM or USB, but doesnt recognize the memory mapped one.

If this should work some day it would be really a great feature.

Thanks (is there any possiblitly to mark a thread as solved ? I mean the problem isnt solved, but it isnt solvable at this moment)