How to add a custom splash screen when booting over PXE

Solution Unverified - Updated -

Environment

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 7

Issue

How to add a custom splash screen when booting over PXE (Preboot Execution Environment).

Resolution

  1. Install documentation, tools for image processing and other important files:

    # yum install syslinux netpbm-progs syslinux-perl

    Or copy content of RPM from a ISO file intended for PXE boot:

    # mount -o loop /rhel/RHEL-7.7-20190723.1-Client-x86_64-dvd1.iso /media/
$ mkdir tmp
$ cd tmp
$ rpm2cpio /media/Packages/syslinux-4.05-15.el7.x86_64.rpm | cpio -dimv

    Documentation is available in /usr/share/doc/syslinux/syslinux.txt

  2. Perform a basic test using a standard splash screen:

    $ gunzip -cd /usr/share/doc/syslinux/sample/syslogo.ppm.gz | ppmtolss16 > /tftpboot/syslogo.lss
$ cp /usr/share/doc/syslinux/sample/sample.msg /tftpboot/
$ cat /tftpboot/pxelinux.cfg/default
default linux
prompt 1
timeout 600

display sample.msg

label linux
...

$ cat /tftpboot/sample.msg 
sample.msg
Note that <Ctrl-P>...<Ctrl-W> can be used to delimit something
that is effectively a comment.
This message is displayed before the image.
syslogo.lss
This message is displayed after the image.
...

    If the above steps work for you (the PXE syslogo.lss image appears), continue with the following steps:

  3. Prepare your own image splash.png (640x480 16-color mode) in GIMP and convert it to lss format:

    $ pngtopnm splash.png | ppmtolss16 > /tftpboot/splash.lss

    (you can try some other parameters for image conversion, see /usr/share/doc/syslinux-4.05/sample/Makefile)

    $ hexdump -C /tftpboot/boot.msg
00000000  18 73 70 6c 61 73 68 2e  6c 73 73 0a              |.splash.lss.|
0000000c

$ cat /pxelinux.cfg/default 
default linux
prompt 0

display boot.msg

label linux
...
  4. Verify that PXE boot now shows your splash screen and it instantly boots the selected kernel from the section linux.

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