On 28.06.2017 10:02, Thomas Huth wrote: > On 28.06.2017 09:28, Viktor Mihajlovski wrote: >> On 27.06.2017 23:40, Thomas Huth wrote: >> [...] >>>>> - Is it OK to require loading an .INS file first? Or does anybody >>>>> have a better idea how to load multiple files (kernel, initrd, >>>>> etc. ...)? >>>> It would be nice to support PXE-style boot, because the majority of boot >>>> servers is set up that way. A straightforward way would be to do a PXE >>>> emulation by attempting to download a pxelinux.cfg from the well-known >>>> locations, parsing the content (menu) and finally load the kernel, >>>> initrd and set the kernel command line as specified there. (I know, but >>>> you're already parsing the INS-File). >>> >>> Please, don't mix up PXE and pxelinux (since you've used both terms in >>> above paragraph). Assuming that you're only talking about pxlinux config >>> files... are they that common on s390x already? Using the pxelinux >>> config file syntax sounds like we would be completely bound to only >>> loading Linux guests to me, since the boot loader has to know where to >>> load the initrd and how to patch the kernel so that it can find the initrd. >>> Using .INS files sounds more flexible to me instead, since you can also >>> specify the addresses here - so you can theoretically also load other >>> guest kernels, and that's IMHO the better approach since a firmware >>> should stay as generic as possible. >>> >> In order to be consumable, the network boot should support the most >> common configurations. I would think that most network boot servers are >> setup as PXE boot servers using pxelinux configs. > > Are you really sure about the popularity of pxelinux? It's just one > flavor of secondary stage network boot loaders - which also only exist > on x86 so far, as far as I know.
And it seems like it also only works with legacy BIOSes, i.e. you can not use it on EFI-only systems, if I've got that right: https://github.com/openSUSE/kiwi/wiki/Setup-PXE-boot-with-EFI-Using-GRUB2 So I guess the significance of pxelinux will very likely decrease in the next years... Thomas
