On Monday 11 Jun 2012 18:40:39 Klaus Espenlaub wrote: > we're working on updating the PXE support in VirtualBox to iPXE, and had > to realize that the KEEP_IT_REAL support is broken. Does anyone know how > far away it is from working state? Didn't find any information in the > ipxe mailing list except > http://article.gmane.org/gmane.network.ipxe.devel/66 - funnily again > talking about VirtualBox. > > It's the only relevant mode of operation which conforms to the PXE spec > (so I was rather surprised that it's not working). It's vital for many > DOS/Windows based or completely custom professional deployment solutions > which expect the PXE stack, especially UNDI, to work from real mode, V86 > mode or 16bit protected mode. > > So if iPXE wants to replace both Etherboot (which is also broken in this > respect) and Intel PXE in VirtualBox this apparently otherwise unused > feature will have to be resurrected. We're aware that this means kicking > out any feature which isn't vital, and that's not a concern since in the > worst case the people who need a more feature rich iPXE build can > replace the ROM image, or use the simple one to bootstrap a build over > the network which has everything enabled.
In the many years since I first implemented KEEP_IT_REAL, this is the first time that anyone has expressed any substantial interest in it. I have personally never come across a deployment product that requires KEEP_IT_REAL. Even the most internally convoluted (Tivoli, which uses VM86 mode and ring 1) manages to work with iPXE as-is. I have only ever encountered one NBP that would require KEEP_IT_REAL: the PXE loader from one of the BSDs (might have been OpenBSD). Support has been allowed to wane since no-one seemed interested and nothing seemed to actually require it. However, I've been fairly strict in retaining a memory model that would allow it to be resurrected; hence the (otherwise artificial) separation between void * and userptr_t. The build architecture introduced to handle EFI (and later Linux-native binaries) is also designed to accommodate a KEEP_IT_REAL platform. Resurrecting support should be reasonably straightforward. Michael _______________________________________________ ipxe-devel mailing list [email protected] https://lists.ipxe.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/ipxe-devel
