booting ipxe from pxelinux

[MultimediaMan]

I was able to get it to work with syslinux 6.01 pxelinux.0 using the ldlinux.c32 helper binary. HPA changed quite bit in syslinux 6.01, and you should read all of the documentation. Not all of the old ways of doing things translate to this release.

Going back to Embedded Scripts... Realize that with a little thought you can do some amazing things with an embedded script which does something in a repeatable manner, which is then controlled server-side.

Consider:

${17} = http://your.webserver.com

undionly.kpxe with the following embedded script:

Code:

#!ipxe
dhcp  
chain ${17}/default.ipxe

You can then write default.ipxe as simple or as complicated as you like.

In default.ipxe you could then do something like:

Code:

chain ${17}/${uuid}

and so on.

The point being, iPXE beats the daylights out of what syslinux can do, and it doesn't have to be restricted to private networks to get a decent amount of security while doing it. Syslinux is and remains a powerful tool, but it's continued reliance on TFTP, lack of native DNS support as well as it's DOS-like *.c32 binaries are limiting it's potential as a viable network boot program in today's environments. Syslinux pxelinux.0 does seem to have better overall basic hardware compatibility, but the tradeoff with compatibility is flexibility.

I do use syslinux on those hardware types I know have issues with the larger undionly iPXE images (Realtek), but that's about the only place I use it anymore.

Best,

Matt