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I'm PXE booting some nodes, and I'd like to have a menu come up that I can see and interact with via IPMI console (ttyS0) to choose what to boot. Is this possible? In particular, what do I have to put in the pxelinux.cfg/default file so that it displays the menu to ttyS0?

Also, do I need the menu.c32 file to do this? I'm currently using PXE netbooting to install Ubuntu 9.10 to nodes that don't have CD drives. However, the Ubuntu DVD image doesn't have the menu.c32 file, only vesamenu.c32 (in /install/netboot/ubuntu-installer/amd64/boot-screens).

Lorin Hochstein
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2 Answers2

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Mircea had a link to the overall docs, but I found a simpler answer here, which was to add the following line to the top of pxelinux.cfg/default.

For example, to redirect to console ttyS0, at a baud rate of 115200, you would do: 

SERIAL 0 115200

This redirects a text menu to the IPMI console that I can interact with.

Lorin Hochstein
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  • yes that's correct, you just need to make sure your bitrate is set correctly and matches the ipmi setting – rytis Jan 29 '10 at 17:40
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You have to look in the documentation for syslinux.

See: http://tldp.org/HOWTO/Remote-Serial-Console-HOWTO/configure-boot-loader-syslinux.html

Mircea Vutcovici
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