How to: Modify the PXE boot menu to allow the booting of .iso files

Bjorn Jentoft

It’s a known fact that tftp is not the fastest protocol out there. Bigger files transfer much better on http. If you exchange [B]pxelinux.0[/B] with [B]gpxelinux.0[/B], http is supported. This will decrease loading time of ISO files substantially.

Your pxelinux.cfg/default would then contain something like this

LABEL winstall32
MENU LABEL Install Windows (all 32-bit)
LINUX memdisk
INITRD [url]http://myfogserver/iso/LiteTouchPE_x86.iso[/url]
APPEND iso raw

or

LABEL winpe
MENU LABEL WinPE
LINUX memdisk
INITRD [url]http://myfogserver/iso/mywinpe.iso[/url]
APPEND iso raw

Good luck, Bjorn

pallytank09

[quote=“ssx4life, post: 1461, member: 268”]As for TRK look here - [url]http://www.technibble.com/forums/showthread.php?t=34477[/url]

p.s. google is your friend

I don’t have time to build and test these software packages due to my work schedule, but looking at the articles they seem rather cut+ dry and straight forward. Jump to part 3 of the guide for AV tools / etc.[/quote]

I followed the guide that was posted here for getting Trinity to boot. I end up with the menu structure but when I burrow down into it, the menu that should list the Trinity options is completely blank. Any thoughts?

ssx4life

@pallytank09 I’ll have to dig into seeing why TRK doesn’t boot for you. I know it’s possible, and I’ve seen it work in the past for some people. I just don’t have the time at the moment to research it.

_< Have you checked with the TRK forums yet? I would suggest that you create a new topic in the help forums for this so we don’t keep adding on / appending this topic so it ends up being longer than needed. That way someone else here may be able to help you (or me if I get time)

thanks!

comprx

[quote=“ssx4life, post: 672, member: 268”]In case anyone is running into trouble I’ve included a copy of my TFTPBOOT folder - [SIZE=4][B][url]http://www.mediafire.com/?1ps7ogj18abz93g[/url][/B][/SIZE] Feel free to play around with it and cut + paste items into your own fog server as you see fit. Just remember to back up your own files before hand! :)[/quote]

The file was removed. any chance of a reupload?

ssx4life

Not to leave people hanging or trying to pick up the pieces, but I have been absent from this project and many other items recently due to family issues, so I apologize for not keeping up with requests or being active on supporting this documentation at this time.

In regards to re-uploading the tftpboot folder perhaps another member can zip and upload one for you. I’m sorry I just don’t have time and or resources to dedicate to this currently.

If things change you’ll be the first to know. Feel free to PM me if you have any questions and I’ll try to get back to ya’ll when I have time.

Thanks in advance >_<

chibiko

Hi ssx4life. Can you take a look at my issue? [URL=‘http://fogproject.org/forum/threads/dell-precision-t5600-not-enough-memory-to-load-specified-image.3789/’]I have setup exactly as your guide. http://fogproject.org/forum/threads/dell-precision-t5600-not-enough-memory-to-load-specified-image.3789/[/URL] What version of syslinux do you think I should try? Should I go all the way back to version 2 or 3?

Bjorn, I’ve also tried your suggestion in using [B]gpxelinux.0 [/B]I changed this on my dhcp scope and copied gpxelinux.0 from the syslinux folder into my /tftpboot. However when I pxe boot up, I got an error saying [B]vesamenu.c32 not a com32r image. [/B]I can hit tab and then load my iso but this runs out of memory even quicker.

brian_

I modified my default to the correct menu and to allow booting of .iso images (windows 7)

but when i select the option in the pxe menu it just quits the pxe boot and restarts the machine.

any help would be nice, but i’ll be testing more tomorrow.

brian_

[quote=“brian_, post: 9719, member: 2729”]I modified my default to the correct menu and to allow booting of .iso images (windows 7)

but when i select the option in the pxe menu it just quits the pxe boot and restarts the machine.

any help would be nice, but i’ll be testing more tomorrow.[/quote]

fixed. had a capital letter in the filename. lawl

i’m also trying to boot to a 3.1 gig image to a machine that has 4 gigs of ram but it always errors out. any suggestions?

chad-bisd

I was able to add SeaTools for DOS to my list of utilities available via PXE boot. No more searching around for CD’s.

I copied the iso to /tftpboot and renamed it all lower case to make it easier. I added the following code to the /tftpboot/pxelinux.cfg/default file just befor the PROMPT 0 at the bottom.

[CODE]
LABEL fog.seatools

    kernel memdisk
    append iso initrd=seatoolsdos223all.iso raw
    MENU LABEL SeaTools for DOS 2.23
    TEXT HELP
    Load SeaTools for DOS, a DOS based disk checking utility to scan for hardware errors with common hard drives.
    ENDTEXT

[/CODE]

Kyle Rice

Hello I’m trying to add spinrite to the PXE boot, so i followed your video, and now i get the Spinrite label in the boot menu but it won’t boot to it, it says "could not find ramdisk image : fog/spinrite/spinrite.iso

Kyle Rice

[quote=“Kyle Rice, post: 12437, member: 4275”]Hello I’m trying to add spinrite to the PXE boot, so i followed your video, and now i get the Spinrite label in the boot menu but it won’t boot to it, it says "could not find ramdisk image : fog/spinrite/spinrite.iso[/quote]

UPDATE : I just fixed it it was named spinrite.ISO not spinrite.iso.

Kyle Rice

Thanks OP (SSX4Life) for the very helpful video!!! this will help lots, imagine the possibilities!!!

x23piracy

Hi,

iam using a very extended default pxe file, if someone is interested i will post i completely.
I used PXE also before FOG to boot serveral ISO’s and tool’s

If you enter my PXE Menu the first thing is a prompt where you will have to enter an administration password to go on, else a timer 5 seconds is starting and starting again and will finally boot the default hdd.

If you enter the psw correctly the menu presents all my entry’s and subentrys

Greetz X23

Scott B

Great thread, helped me out a lot!

darkxeno

I got it on their for Hirens but now it asks for a password and i cant get it to load!!! how can i bypass the password

darkxeno

SO i got it to bypass the email now i get get lines and lines of …

how can i get this to just load!!!

Tom Elliott

That is it loading. It loads for a while.

Gilou

The thing about booting an ISO, is that you have to transfer the size of the ISO over the wire using tftp… Which can take long. The usual approach to live booting on PXE is to send a smaller image, then have the root mounted off NFS, so that it doesn’t have to wait until everything is loaded to boot.

Haz

Old thread I know but hoping someone can help me here.

I have edited the PXE boot menu before a few times (all thanks to this guide - thanks a lot ssx ;)) and never had a problem, however on this latest fog server I have set up I cannot seem to get it to work. I can edit the default file fine to display the menu options and also dropped the ISO files into the correct directory, but when ever I select one of them from the menu it only gets so far and then just says “loading boot sector… booting…”. It would appear that fog has found the iso and started to load it, but a problem lies somewhere else maybe? I have tried a few different memdisk versions, and this still happens on various ISOs such as Ultimate boot CD, Dell Diags, WinPE tools etc…

Any ideas on this would be greatly appreciated

digitalworkshed

Great tutorial video! Really helped me out! Thanks a lot!

How to: Modify the PXE boot menu to allow the booting of .iso files

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