Re: Netboot + Advantec

[markus@infoscape.com]

markus@infoscape.com writes:
 > Ian Leonard writes:
 >  > I agree, but it was they only way I could make it work.
 > 
 > You might also want to try getting the BDK (boot development kit). It
 > appears that the DOC bootstraps a 8kB (or 16kB) BIOS driver that will
 > then continue booting your OS.

I spent a little more time reading the documentation on
http://www.m-sys.com Unfortunately, they do not document all of the
neccessary API's, but from looking at what little source code is
available I made a couple of educated guesses. As I do not have a DOC
myself, I cannot test this. Here is a suggestion, how you might be
able to bootstrap Linux over the net using "etherboot" on the DOC.

Reading the patch files that come with the Linux DOC driver, I
conclude that the DOC BIOS driver software seems to live in the same
location that etherboot gets installed (9800:0000 and above). This
means, you can probably use the masquerading code in
"etherboot/contrib/obsolete/masq" to load "etherboot" from LILO, but
once "etherboot" is installed, you can no longer make any calls to the
HD Bios. This also explains why "etherboot" succeeds in loading Linux,
but hangs afterwards. If we move "etherboot" down by 64kB (change
"RELOCADDR" in "etherboot/src-32/Makefile" to 0x88000) both the DOC
and "etherboot" should be able to co-exist. Of course, this will now
conflict with images that we load over the net
(c.f. "etherboot/doc/text/spec.txt"). Hopefully, this will not cause
any problems as long as you make sure that your tagged image file uses
a "bzImage" (as opposed to "zImage") Linux kernel. Run "mknbi-linux"
in verbose mode to verify that you are not overwriting any of the
memory between 0x8800:0000 and 0xA000:0000.

You will have to use the patched version of LILO that ships with the
DOC Linux drivers
http://www.m-sys.com/files/drivers/linux/doclinux_1_21.zip In order to
write the image, you also need a Linux 2.0.x kernel that has been
patched to include the DOC Linux drivers. You do not neccessarily need
to download a tagged image that includes these drivers, if you do not
intend to access the DOC from Linux; so, you can run 2.2.x kernels!

I know, all of this is very cumbersome, but it might just work (I
would very much appreciate, if somebody who has access to a DOC could
test this) Ideally, you should be able to use m-systems' tformat
utility to write "etherboot" into the DOC's boot partition, but I
suspect this won't work without making a few small changes to
"etherboot" and we can only do those if m-systems documents the format
of the BIOS files. If anybody at m-systems reads this message and
thinks that this information can be made available, please do contact
me.


Markus

-- 
Markus Gutschke                         Internet: markus@infoscape.com
Infoscape, Inc                          Phone:    +1-415-544-4762
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San Francisco, CA 94111

Disclaimer: The above message represents my personal opinion; It does
            not constitute an offical statement by Infoscape!

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