Why does PXE boot fail with the message " Could not find the kernel image: menu" ?

Solution Verified - Updated -

Environment

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5/6
  • PXE Boot Setup

Issue

  • While booting the machine with PXE boot, getting the below message on console.
 Could not find the kernel image: menu
  • The PXE default file contents are as follows.
DEFAULT menu
PROMPT 0
MENU TITLE Cobbler | http://fedorahosted.org/cobbler
TIMEOUT 200
TOTALTIMEOUT 6000
ONTIMEOUT local

LABEL local
    MENU LABEL (local)
    MENU DEFAULT
    LOCALBOOT 0

LABEL STANDARD-GUEST:1:TEST
    kernel /images/ks-rhel-x86_64-server-6-63/vmlinuz
    MENU LABEL STANDARD-GUEST:1:TEST
    append initrd=/images/ks-rhel-x86_64-server-6-63/initrd.img ksdevice=bootif lang=  kssendmac text  ks=http://xx.x.xx.xxx/cblr/svc/op/ks/profile/STANDARD-GUEST:1:SITA
    ipappend 2

Resolution

  • In configuration the default label configured is menu but the label menu doesn't exist, only LOCAL and STANDARD-GUEST:1:TEST are there. See below.
DEFAULT menu
PROMPT 0
MENU TITLE Cobbler | http://fedorahosted.org/cobbler
TIMEOUT 200
TOTALTIMEOUT 6000
ONTIMEOUT local

LABEL local
    MENU LABEL (local)
    MENU DEFAULT
    LOCALBOOT 0

LABEL STANDARD-GUEST:1:TEST
    kernel /images/ks-rhel-x86_64-server-6-63/vmlinuz
    MENU LABEL STANDARD-GUEST:1:TEST
    append initrd=/images/ks-rhel-x86_64-server-6-63/initrd.img ksdevice=bootif lang=  kssendmac text  ks=http://xx.x.xx.xxx/cblr/svc/op/ks/profile/STANDARD-GUEST:1:SITA
    ipappend 2
  • Due to this reason, the error Could not find the kernel image: menu comes up as PXE boot is unable to find the label menu in the configuration file to load the kernel and the initrd.img file.
  • Hence change the DEFAULT label value to existing LABEL value.

Root Cause

  • The label menu was not present in the default file.

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