[ipxe-devel] VMware ESXi stateless + iPXE

[Mariusz Preiss]

Hi

One more question related to that...

I've realised, that even though I've setup
  #define MAX_MODULES from 8 to 200
no more than aruond 80-90 modules are loaded.
If there is some more - pink screen of death for VMware is shown
(something about multiboot images error)

regards

Mariusz

W dniu 2014-10-08 o 15:08, Mariusz Preiss pisze:
> Hello all,
>
> I'm digging into subject of ESXi stateless booted by iPXE, which
> generally works fine
> (tested with ESXi 5.1 and 6.0 RC2) but... I have some questions, that
> you might be able to answer.
>
> I'm using simple solution which is DHCP + TFTPD + iPXE compiled, all on
> FreeBSD 10
> I've simply copied ISO image to the directory, which is reachable via
> http, and I'm pointing to this
> URL from iPXE. I'm loading modules via iPXE directly (module directive)
>
> To have it worked, I  had to:
> - in config/general.h uncomment line
> #define IMAGE_COMBOOT           /* SYSLINUX COMBOOT image support */
> - in arch/i386/image/multiboot.c file raise values
> #define MAX_MODULES 8 -> 200
> #define MB_MAX_CMDLINE (I don't remember default) -> 4096
> - un-gzip all modules that are loaded by iPXE
>
> Now, my questions are:
> - what is the consequence of rasing MAX_MODULES and MB_MAX_CMDLINE?
> Can I raise it as much as I want? Or maybe more memory is reserved on
> the client?
> - why I had to ungzip all modules? I was sure, that iPXE is able to load
> gzip'ed ones...
> - is it possible to forward also parameters for booting itself (tboot
> files from VMware)
> that resides in boot.cfg file in VMware ISO, which is
>
> title=STRING
> kernel=FILEPATH
> kernelopt=STRING
> and also timeout, build, updated, bootstate...
>
> based on
> http://pubs.vmware.com/vsphere-51/index.jsp?topic=%2Fcom.vmware.vsphere.install.doc%2FGUID-1DE4EC58-8665-4F14-9AB4-1C62297D866B.html
>
>
> I would appreciate any help from this list :-)
>
> regards,
>
> Mariusz Preiss