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PXE in wonderland
Hi,

I have collected a bunch of old PII PCs that I am trying to PXE boot.
There NICs are old and so I use etherboot floppy to emulate a native PXE
boot. I have configured tftp, dhcpd, pxelinux, and all the other stuff.
Everything works fine till pxelinux start booting. Then it stucks after
printing the IP row.

--------------- pxelinux output -----------------------

PXELINUX 3.10 2005-08-24 Copyright (C) 1994-2005 H. Peter Anvin
UNDI data segment at: 0009D400
UNDI data segment size: 1000
UNDI data segment at: 0009E400
UNDI data segment size: 0AB0
PXE entry point found (we hope) at 9E40:0680
MY IP address seems to be C0A800FC 192.168.0.252
ip=192.168.0.252:192.168.0.1:0.0.0.0:255.255.255.0

--------------- pxelinux output ---------------------

After downloading and struggling a bit with pxelinux assembler code, I
found out the problem: on the top of the file cpuinit.inc that is
included from pxelinux.asm, the instruction "int 16h" causes havoc on my
pc. Literally, a single instruction causes the whole pc to hang.
Amazing! Would have never believed that. Anyhow, I disabled this
instruction, compiled, and ran pxelinux and things went fine till it
tried to download the kernel. For some reason, tftp refused to give the
kernel, with permission denied. Digging more, I found that this is
related to something called "checksum offload" and accompanied with a
checksum error. I have also noticed that my pc's keyboard does not
function at all once pxelinux starts executing.

Now I am not sure how to proceed. I am also wondering if the instruction
"int 16h" has such a far reaching effects. Could it be the reason for
the failing checksum and the not responding keyboard (after all it
managed to stuck my whole pc)?

To be concluded.

Firas.



--
Firas Swidan, PhD
Founder and CEO
Olymons: Blessing Machines with Vision (TM)
http://www.olymons.com
P.O.Box 8125
Nazareth 16480
Israel
Cell: +.972.(0)54.733.1788

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Re: PXE in wonderland [ In reply to ]
Firas Swidan, PhD wrote:
>
> After downloading and struggling a bit with pxelinux assembler code, I
> found out the problem: on the top of the file cpuinit.inc that is
> included from pxelinux.asm, the instruction "int 16h" causes havoc on my
> pc. Literally, a single instruction causes the whole pc to hang.
> Amazing! Would have never believed that. Anyhow, I disabled this
> instruction, compiled, and ran pxelinux and things went fine till it
> tried to download the kernel. For some reason, tftp refused to give the
> kernel, with permission denied. Digging more, I found that this is
> related to something called "checksum offload" and accompanied with a
> checksum error. I have also noticed that my pc's keyboard does not
> function at all once pxelinux starts executing.
>
> Now I am not sure how to proceed. I am also wondering if the instruction
> "int 16h" has such a far reaching effects. Could it be the reason for
> the failing checksum and the not responding keyboard (after all it
> managed to stuck my whole pc)?
>

Yes, INT 16h is calling the keyboard BIOS, and apparently your keyboard
BIOS is screwed.

-hpa

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Re: PXE in wonderland [ In reply to ]
Op 14-11-2007 om 23:24 schreef Firas Swidan, PhD:
> Hi,
>
> I have collected a bunch of old PII PCs that I am trying to PXE boot.
> There NICs are old and so I use etherboot floppy to emulate a native PXE
> boot. I have configured tftp, dhcpd, pxelinux, and all the other stuff.
> Everything works fine till pxelinux start booting. Then it stucks after
> printing the IP row.
>
> --------------- pxelinux output -----------------------
>
> PXELINUX 3.10 2005-08-24 Copyright (C) 1994-2005 H. Peter Anvin
> UNDI data segment at: 0009D400
> UNDI data segment size: 1000
> UNDI data segment at: 0009E400
> UNDI data segment size: 0AB0
> PXE entry point found (we hope) at 9E40:0680
> MY IP address seems to be C0A800FC 192.168.0.252
> ip=192.168.0.252:192.168.0.1:0.0.0.0:255.255.255.0
>
> --------------- pxelinux output ---------------------

Hey, there was few days ago a simular posting ...

> After downloading and struggling a bit with pxelinux assembler code, I
> found out the problem: on the top of the file cpuinit.inc that is
> included from pxelinux.asm, the instruction "int 16h" causes havoc on my
> pc. Literally, a single instruction causes the whole pc to hang.
> Amazing! Would have never believed that. Anyhow, I disabled this
> instruction, compiled, and ran pxelinux and things went fine till it
> tried to download the kernel. For some reason, tftp refused to give the
> kernel, with permission denied. Digging more, I found that this is
> related to something called "checksum offload" and accompanied with a
> checksum error. I have also noticed that my pc's keyboard does not
> function at all once pxelinux starts executing.
>
> Now I am not sure how to proceed. I am also wondering if the instruction
> "int 16h" has such a far reaching effects. Could it be the reason for
> the failing checksum and the not responding keyboard (after all it
> managed to stuck my whole pc)?

See at least http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BIOS_interrupt_call
for more information about "int 16h"

> To be concluded.
>
> Firas.


Cheers
Some one who assumes that a poster to the mailinglist is subscribed
AND that he/she reads the mailinglist replies.

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