HBCD

[dot1y]

Hello,

I'm trying to boot HBCD 15.2 restored version. What's the best way of doing this: HTTP, NFS, iscsi ? I should mention that I'm using a Frankenstein like configuration: the initial server was WDS, afterwards I have changed the boot program to IPXELINUX from which I am chainloading a Tools menu based on PXE. This menu should contain a HBCD 15.2 option. I have tried using grub, I've tried hooking the iso as an iscsi device, I've tried sanboot, however, in every situation, there are things that are not working.

[dot1y]

Ok, so far the solution I chose is loading HBCD from a Microsoft iscsi target. My ipxe menu config section for this is

dhcp
set keep-san 1
sanhook --no-describe --drive 0x80 iscsi:pxeserverip::::iqn.1991-05.com.microsoft:test
sanboot

I have created the iscsi target partition, set it to active, then copied the entire content of HBCD cd to the partition. I use grldr as the bootloader.
I have renamed grldr to bootmgr and when I sanboot from the iscsi target, grldr is being loaded. All the menus work fine, however, 99% of what's based on an iso image is not loaded (active bootdisk, easeus, paragon, etc).

Any help would be apreciated.

[robinsmidsrod]

If the tools are based on DOS then they should work mostly without issues. If they are based on Windows then you probably need to boot (most likely) the embedded Windows PE using wimboot. If the tools are Linux-based then you'll need to boot the kernel+initrd directly and figure out how to get the main filesystem (usually a squashfs) loaded from the network.

There are no simple solutions in this case, usually.

[dot1y]

Hi robinsmidsrod and thanks for the reply,

I've mingled with every tool and tried either loading it as an image or decompressing it and use the kernel/initrd method and now most of them are working.
I will probably have bad surprises on different bios'es but I'll probably fix them in their own time.

[dot1y]

One more question:
Is LDAP authentication possible with ipxe ?
And yet another one...
When I load HBCD from ipxe menu, I use the grub way (grldr plus *.lst files). I want to make an entry in my .lst files from HBCD that returns me to the ipxe menu. Basically switch from grub to ipxe. Keep in mind that I boot HBCD from an iscsi target.