Re: two questions

[Klaus Espenlaub <espenlaub@informatik.uni-ulm.de>]

ahall@secureworks.net wrote:
> Setup:
> 
> PC with a 3c905Ctx with boot set to network/BOOTP.
> 
> 2)  I have a kernel compilied for testing and I have run mknbi-linux of it
> to make it a "tagged img", the kernel never attempts to load.  To explain
> I am booting of the NIC then bootp kicks in, tftp sends the kernel, then
> nothing.  The screen just sits there with a blinking cursor.

This *should* work IF you use either the netboot or etherboot ROM images,
but I reckon that the fact that you didn't mention anything about the ROM
image, it is probably what 3Com provides - and this has absolutely nothing
to do with either of these packages.

If you use the 3Com boot ROM, you need to follow their image preparation
scheme.  A 3Com employee (Steve Marfisi) described it - you need to prepend
yet another image header to the tagged image (the imghdr.bin file should be
attached to this mail).  So just do a "cat imghdr.bin linux.nbi > linux.img",
and make sure that your BOOTP settings are indeed specifying the right boot
file.

The "tagged image" format is no universal standard, it is just what happens
to be implemented in the two packages I mentioned before (and with yet another
piece of glue with 3Com cards).  If you didn't flash your boot ROM yourself
with the image provided by one of these packages supporting tagged images
directly, it's not surprising that it just failed.

Let's hope that one day the PXE boot spec will fix all this rubbish once and
for all.  <rant>Given that this is an Intel spec, however, I wouldn't bet too
much on it.</rant>

Klaus

Imghdr.bin