Re: NetBSD netboot

[Tobias Nygren <tnn%NetBSD.org@localhost>]

On Fri, 23 Jan 2009 10:20:54 +0300
Dima Veselov <kab00m%lich.phys.spbu.ru@localhost> wrote:

> Hello!
> 
> I am interested in netbooting NetBSD via PXE. The problem is in working 
> Pxelinux menu, want to boot NetBSD through pxelinux.
> 
> As I understand NetBSD kernel should be bootable in several ways, but no 
> works.
> 
> 1. First I tried is to make pxelinux load pxeboot_ia32.bin as a kernel and 
> netbsd kernel appended. It works for few computers, mostly answers 
> pxe_netif_probe: PXENV_UDP_OPEN failed: 0x1. Even if i explicitly save pxe 
> stack through 'keeppxe' option.
> 
> Also, I beleive its pretty wrong to load pxe loader in pxe loader :))
> 
> 2. As I understand NetBSD conforms to multiboot specification, and should be 
> bootable through mboot.c32 loader. It doesn't work too - hanging after kernel 
> loading.
> 
> 3. Also I tried to load it through elf.c32 loader - it hangs and reboots even 
> faster :)
> 
> So, what is the most 'right' way to netboot NetBSD kernel via external 
> pxeloader and why it doesn't work?

Hello,

Perhaps you should take a look at pxegrub. It can show a menu and
boots both NetBSD and Linux. I'm not sure it knows how to boot modular
kernels (NetBSD-current), but 4.x and 5.x should work fine.

-Tobias