Revision as of 21:20, 17 April 2009

About

mboot.c32 is a comboot module for Syslinux that loads images using the Multiboot protocol. A really good use case for this is booting Xen, or any other hypervisor based virtualization pieces that also require an initrd/initramfs. If your Xen boot doesn't require an initrd then, then it is possible to utilize the existing kernel/append method. Another use case for mboot.c32 is to boot FreeBSD.

Requirements

• working Syslinux environment
• mboot.c32

Syntax

mboot.c32 stage1 stage1_args --- stage2 stage2_args --- stage3 stage3_args [ --- stageX stageX_args ]

The use of --- is required!

Example

Here is an example pxelinux.cfg file for booting Xen

LABEL xen
  KERNEL mboot.c32
  APPEND xen-3.2.gz dom0_mem=262144 --- vmlinuz-2.6.16-2-xen-686 console=tty0 root=/dev/md1 ro --- initrd.img-2.6.16-2-xen-686

Here is an example pxelinux.cfg file for booting Xen over HTTP, when using gpxelinux.0 (needs testing)

LABEL xen
  KERNEL http://fs.local/pxe/mboot.c32
  APPEND http://fs.local/pxe/xen-3.2.gz dom0_mem=262144 --- http://fs.local/pxe/vmlinuz-2.6.16-2-xen-686 console=tty0 \
root=/dev/md1 ro --- http://fs.local/pxe/initrd.img-2.6.16-2-xen-686

Booting FreeBSD

http://syslinux.zytor.com/archives/2009-April/012124.html

LABEL freebsd
  KERNEL mboot.c32
  APPEND  freebsd_kernel  freebsd_initial_ramdisk  kernel_option kernel_option