Possible to include ARP support in Netboot with 16KB and etc.

[Mike Hammer <mike-hammer@usa.net>]

Hello,

I'm really glad that there's Netboot mailing list archive.  For
past 2 days i'll pulling my hair out as to why there's no ARP
reply coming from Netboot.  Here's a quick story:

Recently i changed over from a BOOTP server to a DHCP server in
my Windows NT Server.  It turns out Windows NT DHCP can now accept
and respond to a BOOTP request.  Thus being curious i decided to
try with Etherboot and Netboot.  Etherboot first and the booting
worked great.  Next the Netboot.  It turns out BOOTP phase works
great but TFTP just won't start.  After checking few configurations
i decided to look over the network with LAN analyzer.  

It seems when i use BOOTPD with TFTPD there's *no* ARP request sent
by NT server but when i use NT's DHCP with TFTPD there's ARP request
sent by the NT server.  Sort of strange since i thought ARP should
not be needed from prior DHCP information from client and the client
IP-MAC should have been cached in.

Anyways, the LAN analyzer trace shows Etherboot promptly responding
with ARP reply to the NT Server but Netboot didn't.  This is when
i started to go CRAZY.  After two days of analysis i happen to check
on the Netboot mailing list archive and there it was, clearly that
Netboot in its minimal kernel doesn't support ARP.  Man, i realized
that i was using minimal kernel and not the standard.

Anyways, after burning the standard kernel everthing went okay.

Is it possible to include the ARP support into minimal kernel?

In using mknbi-linux or mknbi-dos, can the bootable image have
its size >1.44MB?

Finally, Netboot seems to have a feature where i can combine .EXE
and/or .COM.  I think this is a VERY NICE FEATURE.  Can i combine
more than one .EXE and/or .COM?  

Is there some restriction in what i can do in these programs, such as 
doing screen access via BIOS INT10H console i/o service?

The document states combined bootrom kernel and .EXE/.COM must be
<64KB.  Will the compression of kernel and .EXE/.COM still permit
me to use 32KB PROM?  It seems Netboot can support upto 64KB of
extended BIOS size after the compression thus if located at C8000H,
expanded size can be upto 64KB?

Thank you very much,

hammer