Re: memdisk not allowing certain images to boot

[Pete Eby]

Michael DeHaan wrote:
>  Pete Eby wrote:
> > Hi everyone,
> >
> > We recently have deployed Cobbler and its working very well for us. I am
> > having some trouble getting some images to work correctly with memdisk
> > though and was hoping I might be able to get some advice.
> >
> > For example, I have tried adding the image using the following methods:
> >
> > cobbler image add --name=UltraPro --file=/tftpboot/hw/ultrapro.img
> > --image-type=memdisk
> >
> > cobbler image add --name=UltraPro --file=/tftpboot/hw/ultrapro.img
> > --image-type=direct
> >
> > cobbler distro add --name=UltraPro --kernel=/tftpboot/memdisk
> > --initrd=/tftpboot/hw/ultrapro.img
> >
> > (I assume this one is incorrect the the above methods are the way to go.)
> >
> > In all cases, the kernel loads but it appears that right when it goes to
> > execute the program, it just hangs at a black screen.
> >
> > I thought it might be the version of memdisk, so I downloaded
> > syslinux-3.73 and compiled a new memdisk - though that did not seem to
> > do anything.
> >
> > I do have memdisk working fine with a memtest.img, but when trying to
> > use several other .img files (Such as this UltraPro img of a floppy, and
> > various others) I am getting this issue.
> >
> > Thanks for any input, I appreciate it.
> >
> > Cheers,
> > Pete Eby
> > _______________________________________________
> > cobbler mailing list
> > cobbler(a)lists.fedorahosted.org
> > https://fedorahosted.org/mailman/listinfo/cobbler
> >   
>  
>  
>  Hi Pete,
>  
>  Sorry for my ignorance here, but what's an ultrapro?
>  
>  You might want to try asking this on the syslinux mailing list -- but it 
>  may also not be the right kind of image, don't know.
>  
>  I'd be sure to share your options from 
>  /var/lib/tftpboot/pxelinux.cfg/filename to show what you are passing to 
>  it if that is the case.
>  
>  Some one else may have some other ideas.
>  
>  I have, for what it's worth, only tried it with memtest as well.
>  
>  --Michael
>  
>  
>  
>  
>  
>  --Michael
>  
>  
>  
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>  
>   
Hi Michael,

Thanks for the input.

UltraPro is a hardware testing environment we use to test servers with.
It does an okay job.

The weird thing is that this works fine on our generic PXE system with
just memdisk and loading the image. I even tried the exact same memdisk
file. For some reason this does not work in Cobbler, but works fine on
our "normal" PXE server.

The Cobbler PXE menu entry is:

LABEL UltraPro
        kernel /memdisk
        MENU LABEL UltraPro
        append initrd=/images2/UltraPro ksdevice=eth0 lang=  kssendmac
syslog=192.168.42.100:25150 text

(I tried taking out all the extra options manually and just leaving the
kernel and initrd args, but same result)

Or old PXE system boots in the same way, and it works okay:

LABEL ultrapro
        KERNEL memdisk
        APPEND initrd=/hw/ultrapro.img

It seems to be related in some way to Cobbler, but I can't zero in on
how exactly.

I have some other .img files that are the same - the work fine on our
old PXE server, but not Cobbler - in all cases they just use memdisk and
the img and that is pretty much all.

If you or anyone has any other suggestions that would be great.

Thanks,
Pete