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loading grub4dos through pxelinux


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#1 giorgosg

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Posted 08 October 2009 - 10:26 PM

Hello guys..
Ive manage to call grub.exe in order for Grub4dos to be loaded throught my pxelinux menu, but as it seems, it cant find the menu.lst
the file exists, and i m worrying if grub.exe cannot mount the right partition to find it.

my config lines are

label Grub4DOS
kernel boot/grub/grub.exe


is there something i must add in order to find my menu.lst ?
please help
thanks in advance

#2 oriensol

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Posted 09 October 2009 - 04:29 AM

Check this out:

http://diddy.boot-la...s/files/pxe.htm

Though not exactly what you are asking.

#3 diddy

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Posted 09 October 2009 - 06:11 AM

Hello guys..
Ive manage to call grub.exe in order for Grub4dos to be loaded throught my pxelinux menu, but as it seems, it cant find the menu.lst

I don't have access to a PXE server setup to test this, but try saving your menu.lst file in your tftp root directory as /menu.lst/default (as per instructions here). I can't remember whether loading grub.exe from pxelinux results in the normal search for menu.lst (e.g. (hd0,#)/menu.lst, (hd1,#)/menu.lst, etc) or whether the search path defaults to the PXE search path -
[/mybootdir]/menu.lst/01-88-99-AA-BB-CC-DD	[/mybootdir]/menu.lst/C000025B	[/mybootdir]/menu.lst/C000025	[/mybootdir]/menu.lst/C00002	[/mybootdir]/menu.lst/C0000	[/mybootdir]/menu.lst/C000	[/mybootdir]/menu.lst/C00	[/mybootdir]/menu.lst/C0	[/mybootdir]/menu.lst/C	[/mybootdir]/menu.lst/default

diddy

#4 was_jaclaz

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Posted 09 October 2009 - 09:15 AM

Once you have booted to grub.exe you find yourself in command line mode.

Try issuing commands to find the menu.lst.

First thing check which drives you have available in grub.exe:
root (
[TAB]

Then, check if
find /menu.lst
[ENTER]

gives you a hit.

jaclaz

#5 giorgosg

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Posted 09 October 2009 - 08:46 PM

thanks a lot guys.
diddy, you helped a lot and thanks!!

let me ask something for the record..
whats the use of loading grub4dos wia pxelinux?
i mean.. is something you can do with grub4dos that you cant with pxe?

#6 Icecube

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Posted 10 October 2009 - 03:52 PM

I tried it with grldr instead of grub.exe (Grub4dos 2009-10-06).
LABEL grub4dos

COM32 chain.c32

APPEND file=/boot/grub/grldr
My menu.lst file is at /boot/grub/menu.lst on my 'tftp' server.

It boots fine with the following command in qemu: (it will first look for the files that diddy mentioned).
qemu -hda /dev/zero -net nic -net user -boot n -tftp /tftp-dir -bootp /pxelinux.0


#7 was_jaclaz

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Posted 10 October 2009 - 04:07 PM

let me ask something for the record..
whats the use of loading grub4dos wia pxelinux?
i mean.. is something you can do with grub4dos that you cant with pxe?


I don't get it. :thumbsup:
You don't know what it is useful for and you ask how to do it? <_<

(mind you I have NO idea why you would want to load grub.exe from pxelinux, but you asked that)

Ive manage to call grub.exe in order for Grub4dos to be loaded throught my pxelinux menu, but as it seems, it cant find the menu.lst
the file exists, and i m worrying if grub.exe cannot mount the right partition to find it.


I mean, are you trying to do something for which you have not a "goal"? :hypocrite:

jaclaz

#8 giorgosg

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Posted 11 October 2009 - 02:53 PM

there is a grub4dos config that my company uses that is toooooo large to make it again in pxelinux terms.
this will cost me about a week and i have no time to spend for that. thats why i asked if there is a way to load the grub loader directly.
asking that, i thought that i could use everything possible extra grub4dos got, and thats why i asked about
the positives too.
anyway, thanks, i have already started the conversion from the grub4dos to pxelinux

#9 Icecube

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Posted 11 October 2009 - 03:31 PM

there is a grub4dos config that my company uses that is toooooo large to make it again in pxelinux terms.
this will cost me about a week and i have no time to spend for that.

How many entries does it has, that it would take a week? Thousand?

#10 slseed

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Posted 27 January 2010 - 08:20 AM

I'm also having this exact problem. Actually, I'm seeing this problem only on certain newer hardware with Broadcom NetXtreme II BCM5709 cards (Dell PowerEdge R610). I tried doing a find form the grub prompt for the menu.lst and nothing can be found. It's like the pxe mount is empty.

On other new hardware (HP Z600) I get a GRUB prompt saying "Launching GRUB...begin pxe call(type=DHCP_ACK)..." then it just freezes up.

It's strange because this same exact configuration loading grub4dos.exe from pxelinux is working perfectly on a bunch of my older hardware including HP xw8400 and xw8600s and VMware virtual hosts.

I really would appreciate any help on this issues. It's holding up my deployment of grub4dos.

#11 Wonko the Sane

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Posted 27 January 2010 - 08:51 AM

It's strange because this same exact configuration loading grub4dos.exe from pxelinux is working perfectly on a bunch of my older hardware including HP xw8400 and xw8600s and VMware virtual hosts.


Start by posting details on this working on other hardware "exact configuration", it is possible that a different approach works on the old one and on the new one too.
Also which EXACT version of grub4dos and pxelinux are you using?

Wonko

#12 slseed

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Posted 17 February 2010 - 06:07 AM

Sorry it's taken me so long to respond. Here are my specifics...

grub4dos-0.4.4-2009-06-20
pxelinux v3.84 2009-12-18 (originally I was running 3.61 2008-02-03)
My tftp server is 0.49-2 on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.4

I'm using the same tftp server, dhcp server, grub4dos, pxelinux, etc will all hosts, but it seems these newer systems all bomb out once grub.exe is loaded from pxelinux. The only thing I can see in common on the newer systems is they are all Intel Xeon 5500 (Nahalem) based. I've tried a range of memory configurations on these hosts from 8GB to 24GB with no luck. The behavior varies too between hardware. Some systems freeze when loading grub.exe, others reboot immediately, while other seem to unpack a partial image and then freeze, and still some can't even find the menu.lst. The hardware ranges from Dell, to HP, SuperMicro.

Here is my pxe file:

DEFAULT menu.c32
PROMPT 0
MENU TITLE PXE BOOT MENU:
TIMEOUT 50
TOTALTIMEOUT 600
ONTIMEOUT local

LABEL local
MENU LABEL (local)
MENU DEFAULT
LOCALBOOT 0

LABEL support
MENU LABEL Support Tools
kernel /grub.exe
append keeppxe
MENU end

And here is my menu.lst file:
color light-cyan/black blue/green blue/green
default 0
splashimage=/wdas-splash.xpm.gz
password --md5 $1$sO5yJ/$UwIxX/JvcaovJ8No6Zi8x/

title Firware Updates
lock
map --mem (pd)/iso/firmware.img (fd0)
map --hook
chainloader (fd0)+1
rootnoverify(fd0)

title System Rescue
lock
map --mem (pd)/iso/systemrescuecd-x86-1.3.2.iso (0xFF)
map --hook
root (0xFF)
chainloader (0xFF)

title Tiny Core Linux
lock
map --mem (pd)/iso/tinycore_2.5.iso (0xFF)
map --hook
root (0xFF)
chainloader (0xFF)

title Grub Commandline
lock
commandline

#13 Wonko the Sane

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Posted 17 February 2010 - 07:43 AM

Well, you are using outdated versions.

It is very possible that newer ones will do. (mind you it is also possible that they won't)

http://www.boot-land...showtopic=10357

Also, it is perfectly possible that the settings in your PXE server are somehow not compatible with the new hardware PXE. :cheers:

Syslinux/Pxelinux, try using latest "testing":
http://www.kernel.or...slinux/Testing/

:smiling9:

Wonko

#14 Icecube

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Posted 17 February 2010 - 08:45 AM

@ slseed
You can also run all your tools from PXELINUX instead of Grub4dos with the help of MEMDISK (available in Syslinux package ==> recently supports booting ISO's):
LABEL firmware

MENU LABEL Firmware Updates

LINUX memdisk

INITRD /iso/firmware.img

APPEND raw



LABEL systemrescue

MENU LABEL System Rescue

LINUX memdisk

INITRD /iso/systemrescuecd-x86-1.3.2.iso

APPEND iso



LABEL tinycore

MENU LABEL Tiny Core Linux

LINUX memdisk

INITRD &#41;/iso/tinycore_2.5.iso

APPEND iso

You can also chainload /grldr with chain.c32 (not sure if it will help):
LABEL grub4dos

MENU LABEL Load grldr

COM32 chain.c32

APPEND keeppxe file=grldr


#15 slseed

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Posted 19 February 2010 - 07:01 AM

title Firware Updates
lock
map --mem (pd)/iso/firmware.img (fd0)
map --hook
chainloader (fd0)+1
rootnoverify(fd0)
@ slseed
You can also run all your tools from PXELINUX instead of Grub4dos with the help of MEMDISK (available in Syslinux package ==> recently supports booting ISO's):

LABEL firmware

MENU LABEL Firmware Updates

LINUX memdisk

INITRD /iso/firmware.img

APPEND raw



LABEL systemrescue

MENU LABEL System Rescue

LINUX memdisk

INITRD /iso/systemrescuecd-x86-1.3.2.iso

APPEND iso



LABEL tinycore

MENU LABEL Tiny Core Linux

LINUX memdisk

INITRD &#41;/iso/tinycore_2.5.iso

APPEND iso

You can also chainload /grldr with chain.c32 (not sure if it will help):
LABEL grub4dos

MENU LABEL Load grldr

COM32 chain.c32

APPEND keeppxe file=grldr


I tried using the most recent version of grub4dos and the testing versions of pxelinux from syslinux 4.0, but I still couldn't get grub4dos to work with the newer hardware when chained through pxelinux.

I took your advice and used the latest testing version of pxelinux to boot my disk images and iso's. Now I don't need grub4dos at all and things are working the way I want.

Thanks! :smiling9:




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