Peter, I need a versatile BIOS replacement as the customers we will be serving can bring in practically any os, image, or possibly even boot system for their research projects. My main concern is serial redirection and ability to boot over networks in many possible ways, like ethernet, myrinet, or infiniband. I actually don't think that most of the issues are coreboot related, but rather gPXE. However, all available documentation for using gPXE as a coreboot payload is on the coreboot page. And all binary formats except for elf were disabled in the experimental patches.
If possible, I would like to come up with a solution that can work with the mainstream gPXE trunk, but I would like a deeper understanding of how libpayload interacts with gPXE, and where the problems with legacy bios callbacks come in, and if there are any issues with coreboot I need to be aware of before starting.
I will experiment further, but was just curious if anyone is actively working on the same thing already. /Andree On Nov 11, 2010 5:07 PM, "Peter Stuge" peter@stuge.se wrote:
Andree Jacobson wrote:
Peter, I need a versatile BIOS replacement
You just described coreboot! :)
However, all available documentation for using gPXE as a coreboot payload is on the coreboot page. And all binary formats except for elf were disabled in the experimental patches.
The payload concept is specific to coreboot, so it fits fairly well.
If possible, I would like to come up with a solution that can work with the mainstream gPXE trunk, but I would like a deeper understanding of how libpayload interacts with gPXE,
Well, to use gPXE trunk you'll need to work the patches into it.
and where the problems with legacy bios callbacks come in,
SeaBIOS is the only component that provides legacy BIOS callbacks. Proper PXE requires them, but gPXE can do basically the same as PXE (dhcp+tftp) without BIOS services. But to do full PXE, SeaBIOS needs to be there.
and if there are any issues with coreboot I need to be aware of before starting.
Not really.
I will experiment further, but was just curious if anyone is actively working on the same thing already.
I don't think so. Haven't seen much since Chris' work.
//Peter
On Thu, Nov 11, 2010 at 07:31:06PM -0700, Andree Jacobson wrote:
Peter, I need a versatile BIOS replacement as the customers we will be serving can bring in practically any os, image, or possibly even boot system for their research projects.
You'll likely need SeaBIOS anyway then. Most OSes will make BIOS calls during their startup. So, if SeaBIOS loads gPXE and gPXE loads an OS, the OS can still make calls to SeaBIOS. However, if gPXE is loaded directly, there wont be a BIOS for the OS to call.
-Kevin
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Andree Jacobson -
Kevin O'Connor -
Peter Stuge