While scripting a syslinux bootimage with a menu and miscellaneous utilities, I found a virtualization platform called QEMU. It can be called directly from the script to verify the functionality and is very convenient for the purpose.

Script to create and launch the .ISO:

There is a directory named \TOOL where all the important files reside, for ex: \TOOL\BOOT(syslinux) and \TOOL\IMAGES(iso-images). This is the also the base directory from which MKISOFS builds the image from.

 

I also parse the \TOOL\IMAGES directory and build a dynamic menu(syslinux.cfg) from the contents. You might need a different configuration for booting the underlying image(YMMW):

Utils used to create and test the menu : SYSLINUX , QEMU and MKISOFS.