From: MX%"netboot@baghira.han.de" 14-JUL-2000 23:34:54.13 To: MX%"netboot@baghira.han.de" CC: MX%"jt@fuw.edu.pl" Subj: Etherboot/Netboot introductory info Return-Path: Received: from cocos.fuw.edu.pl by npdaxp.fuw.edu.pl (MX V4.1 AXP) with SMTP; Fri, 14 Jul 2000 23:34:52 MET_DST Received: from baghira.han.de ([212.63.63.2]) by cocos.fuw.edu.pl (8.9.1/8.9.1) with ESMTP id XAA06010 for ; Fri, 14 Jul 2000 23:40:04 +0200 (MET DST) Received: (from root@localhost) by baghira.han.de (8.9.3/8.9.3) id WAA00499 for netboot-outgoing; Fri, 14 Jul 2000 22:43:27 +0200 Received: from shadow.han.de (shadow.han.de [212.63.63.8]) by baghira.han.de (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id WAA00496 for ; Fri, 14 Jul 2000 22:43:26 +0200 From: Jerzy.Tarasiuk@fuw.edu.pl Received: from cocos.fuw.edu.pl (cocos.fuw.edu.pl [193.0.80.11]) by shadow.han.de (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id WAA18879 for ; Fri, 14 Jul 2000 22:43:29 +0200 Received: from fizyk1.fuw.edu.pl (fizyk1 [193.0.81.41]) by cocos.fuw.edu.pl (8.9.1/8.9.1) with SMTP id WAA05184; Fri, 14 Jul 2000 22:48:26 +0200 (MET DST) Received: by fizyk1.fuw.edu.pl (4.1/SMI-4.1) id AA00671; Fri, 14 Jul 00 22:43:19 +0200 Date: Fri, 14 Jul 00 22:43:19 +0200 Message-ID: <10007142043.AA00671@fizyk1.fuw.edu.pl> To: netboot@baghira.han.de CC: jt@fuw.edu.pl Subject: Etherboot/Netboot introductory info Sender: owner-netboot@baghira.han.de Precedence: bulk Reply-To: netboot@baghira.han.de X-Moderator: netboot-owner@baghira.han.de Hello, I wrote some introductory info about Netboot and Etherboot. Of course, I am not sure if it is completely correct, also there are few questions in it, and maybe some info I did not put here is important enough to be required in such an info. So, please help me make it better. Jerzy Tarasiuk PS: one of my purposes was to have the info for me, to know what to do with these programs, what can I expect, etc. ---------------------------------------------------------------- 1. Making bootrom. Etherboot requires a driver - when you have the Etherboot driver for your card, just 'cd src' and use 'make' to make the bootrom images (will be in src/bin*/ subdirectories); otherwise you need write or get suitable driver: - written in C, to be compiled on Linux - has one public function: probe, which returns a pointer to a nic structure, describing other functions and NIC - has the following functions passed in the nic structure: - reset ( nic_struct_pointer ) - disable ( nic_struct_pointer ) - send ( nic_struct_pointer , byte eth_addr[6] , p_type , data_size , &data ) - poll ( nic_struct_pointer ) - this returns 0 if nothing received, 1 if received ( nic->packet gets data from the packet, nic->packetlen gets length of the data ) more detailed info how to write an Etherboot driver is here; and there are drivers for many cards (here is list). Netboot driver and related issues: - uses packet driver (from netboot/bootrom/netdrvr/, drivers 3c501, 3c503, 3c509, arcether, dc21x4, e100bpkt, ne1000, ne2000, ne2100, smc_wd are distributed with netboot; - has relatively large 'kernel', e.g. bootrom code length w/ 3c503 driver is 0x3172 bytes (driver size ~= 0x1512) for minimal one, other kernels result in larger image - almost 16kbytes; - a 'makerom' program which makes rom image asks for: - kernel (1:normal, 2:minimal, 3:8086; '1'-'3' ~= 112 bytes) - look for boot drives (y/n; size does not depend on answer) - driver (these from the netdrvr directory - can put own ones there, or 0 to be asked for full path of the driver to use) - command line arguments for the driver - do you want to use ANSI display driver (yes = almost 1kb more) - do you want to use acket driver debugger (almost 1kb, too) - do you want to specify an additional program, if 'yes' then - full path name of the program - command line arguments for the program - and the question about additional program displayed again (an empty program takes 5 bytes; the program is told to be invoked before driver, it can be DOS .com or .exe file) - finally, output file format (always floppy image is made) and writes files image.flo and image.rom; the first has 200-byte (decimal 200!) more than rom size, second is 0-filled to 2^N, and last byte in the image is adjusted to get proper checksum (it would be better to use FF fill (eprom programming time)). 2. Making boot images. I believe both share the same boot image format - is it true? Both have utils to make the boot image (called mknbi*), and these are different (in spite of their common origin): - Netboot has utils to make DOS or Linux images, and Menu image (written in some Pascal-like language); do I guess correctly that it allows to select what boot is to be done? - Etherboot can make images for linux, freedos (loading kernel without the image and saving memory this way), dos, and rom - this last allows to load bootrom image from boot image, for testing purposes; I did not see info about menu there. [seems need write more on the topic - later] 3. Where can get them from and what version? Etherboot: http://etherboot.sourceforge.net/ version 4.6.3 of 08 Jul 2000 Netboot: http://www.han.de/~gero/netboot.html version 0.8.1 of 07 Jun 1998 version 0.9.0e of 29 Jun 2000 ? (the 'version' is the last known when I was writing it) ---------------------------------------------------------------- =========================================================================== This Mail was sent to netboot mailing list by: Jerzy.Tarasiuk@fuw.edu.pl To get help about this list, send a mail with 'help' as the only string in it's body to majordomo@baghira.han.de. If you have problems with this list, send a mail to netboot-owner@baghira.han.de.