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

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!

qUoTuM

Is there any way i can do this in FOG 1.0.0?
I looked it up but its kind of different and i cant figure out how to do it.

Tom Elliott

[quote=“qUoTuM, post: 26870, member: 24126”]Is there any way i can do this in FOG 1.0.0?
I looked it up but its kind of different and i cant figure out how to do it.[/quote]

I direct you to a couple of other posts wanting, basically, the same things:
[url]http://fogproject.org/forum/threads/switching-to-gpxelinux.3995/[/url]
[url]http://fogproject.org/forum/threads/fog-0-33b-edit-pxe-menu.10403/[/url]

They both talk about how to add entries under the advanced menu system as many things are rather touchy with the BootMenu directly. That said, so long as there’s information contained in the Advanced menu, changes are likely things will work for your scenario.

Thank you,

qUoTuM

Thank you.
It works, but only if the ISO is in the “www/fog” directory.
If I create an own directory “www/ISO” and set chmod to 777 it does not work.

Junkhacker

i keep my ISO files in a separate folder from www/fog, and it works fine and my permissions are set to 644.
have you tried testing the location you put into the “advanced” menu in a browser? it should ask if you want to download the file.

qUoTuM

Yes i tried testing the location in Chrome/Firefox/IE. I tried setting the permissions to 644 either.
I get the following error message: “[SIZE=4][FONT=Times New Roman][COLOR=#000000]The requested URL … was not found on this server.”
[/COLOR][/FONT][/SIZE]

Junkhacker

if the files are within your web root, and you can’t download them with a browser, then you almost certainly have the URL wrong. keep in mind that anything past the first / is case sensitive

qUoTuM

Yes I know that. I checked it several times. The URL is not wrong.
I will do some more research tomorrow.

Junkhacker

if you provide a copy of what you put in your advanced boot options, i can help you troubleshoot it

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

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