> On 1999-Nov-03 15:59:38 +1100, Matthew Dillon wrote:
> >:Well, bootp in the kernel has to die too.
> >
> >Huh? And replace it with what? BOOTP is the only way to get an NFS
> >root and swap.
>
> Sun uses reverse ARP to do this. Reverse ARP _is_ a hack, but it _is_
> an alternative to BOOTP.
RARP would be a really bad move at the moment, since everyone else is
using DHCP. For those that are still following, the roadmap looks like
this at the moment:
- On the PC, we will be following the PXE lead, since that's where the
market is going. This basically involves using the PXE firmware
which will talk to a PXE server to get the loader. It can also be
conned into using normal DHCP. File transfer is either by MTFTP
(multicast TFTP) or normal TFTP. The loader will do plain DHCP and
use NFS to get the kernel straight out of the prospective root
filesystem.
Please don't complain about how ugly PXE is. It's the closest thing
the PC world has ever seen to a sane network boot architecture.
You're welcome to go work on RPL if you want some perspective. 8)
- On the Alpha, diskless booting involves BOOTP/TFTP to fetch the
loader. The loader will then happily use BOOTP or DHCP again (since
SRM is too stupid to tell _us_ what it discovered) and NFS to read
the kernel from the root filesystem.
As you can see from the above, there's no call for RARP, bootparam, RPL
or any other form of mumbo-jumbo. There's also no call for the kernel
to do any of this work; the loader will do it all and pass it in to the
kernel in a format it can use directly.
What is currently missing, you ask?
- The loader DHCP code needs to be written.
- The kernel needs to improve the way it handles interface
configuration information passed to it by the loader.
- We need more PXE work done for the i386 loader. Intel are helping
here a little, but I could use a couple of extra hands to get this
done sooner rather than later.
That's about it; we're almost there.
--
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\\ Tell him he should learn how to fish himself, \\ [EMAIL PROTECTED]
\\ and he'll hate you for a lifetime. \\ [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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