As current implementation of PXE miroFSD are not fully compatible with the OS/4 kernel the new pxeos4l microFSD was created to enable the boot of the OS/4 kernel over the network.


A. Overview

The pxeos4l module is a part of the OS/4 project. The OS/4 project "phoenix" is run by a team of talented developers.
This will be a small howto to quickly setup all correctly. Prequisites for this test are a OS/2 alike install on HDD (MCP/ACP/eCS) that are capable to run the new OS/4 kernel together with the new os2ldr - the client. The initial boot process will be started from the network and then to be continued from HDD. For the network part its required to have another OS/2 machine on the network that will provide the files and services for the network boot, the client machine requires an ethernet network adapter with PXE support, its not required to have a working OS/2 NDIS driver for this adapter.

Summary of requirements:

- OS/2 client machine with a build of OS/4 kernel & loader dated 23.1.2012 or newer (recommended to use revision 3636) + network adapter with PXE support (link-not-allowed)/os2krnlSVN3636_unoff.zip
- OS/2 'server' machine for the network boot services
- pxeos4 module (link-not-allowed)/moveton/pxeos4-1.120128.zip
- TFTP-Server (link-not-allowed)/moveton/vgtftpd-1.0.zip
- DHCP-Server http://www.os2site.com/sw/internet/dns/dhcp-3.1-esv-os2.zip


B. Configuration

Extract the tftpd and dhcp files to any place you like. Create an emty TFTP directory that will hold the boot files, e.g. G:\TFTP then create the subdir \OS4 and \pxeos4l.cfg
Place the following files from the OS/4 kernel package in the \OS4 subdir:

G:\TFTP\OS4\os2ldr.ini
G:\TFTP\OS4\os2krnl.os4
G:\TFTP\OS4\OS2LDR.os4
G:\TFTP\OS4\os4krnl.ini

from the working OS/2 client machine add

G:\TFTP\OS4\OS2LDR.MSG
G:\TFTP\OS4\OS2BOOT

from the pxeos4 package add

G:\TFTP\OS4\pxeos4l.0

create a config file for the client by using the mac address of the
network adapter in the client machine, this file will be placed in the
pxeos4l.cfg dir e.g.

G:\TFTP\OS4\pxeos4l.cfg\2C-41-38-AE-06-31.cfg

The settings of the config will include the name of the base files and
the boot device.

content of 2C-41-38-AE-06-31.cfg


========== 2C-41-38-AE-06-31.cfg =================================

# config for pxeos4l
device-id=128 # first HDD
device-part=1 # 0 - non partitioned, 1-4 - primary, 5+ - extended
drive=C # boot drive letter

# TFTP dir for files requested by os4ldr.
system-root=os4

# initial files to be loaded by microFSD
os4ldr=os2ldr.os4
os4boot=OS2BOOT

========== 2C-41-38-AE-06-31.cfg =================================

After we have finished the configuration for the client we can create the configuration for the DHCP server. The files for the configuration are all stored in the root of the dhcp server files, e.g. G:\DHCPD. Create an empty file named dhcpd.leases

G:\DHCPD\dhcpd.leases

Then create the main dhcp.conf

G:\DHCPD\dhcpd.conf

The boot server has the ip address of 192.168.0.122 assigned. The complete dhcp.conf will look like this:

========== dhcp.conf =============================================
# OS2 ISC DHCPD config file

option domain-name-servers 192.168.0.122;
authoritative;
ddns-update-style none;
default-lease-time 6400;
allow booting;
allow bootp;
class "pxeclients" {
match if substring(option vendor-class-identifier, 0, 9) = "PXEClient";
next-server 192.168.0.122;
filename = "/os4/pxeos4l.0";
}

shared-network OS4DevCentral {
subnet 192.168.0.0 netmask 255.255.255.0 {
range 192.168.0.200 192.168.0.220;
option routers 192.168.0.20;
}
}
========== dhcp.conf =============================================

The setup is now ready, we start the TFTP service with the following command

vgtftpd.exe -root G:\TFTP

then the dhcp server

dhcpd.exe -f -d -cf G:\DHCPD\dhcpd.conf -lf G:\DHCPD\dhcpd.leases lan0

In case all services are running we can start the OS/2 client machine with enabled PXE boot rom, change the boot order or use the boot menu of the BIOS to try the boot from the network. In case everything is fine the PXE Boot client will get the dhcp address from the boot server and then transfer the base files for the boot from the tftp server then the boot will use the files of the os2 install on the HDD.
In case you run into troubles check the readme of the pxeos4l package, when it comes to bugs of pxeos4l contact the author whose name can be also found in the readme.

http://www.os2.ru/

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