Re: [ECOS] BOOPT bootfile

[Grant Edwards <grante at visi dot com>]

On Thu, Jan 30, 2003 at 08:15:55AM -0700, Gary D. Thomas wrote:

> > > Do you want RedBoot to use the information in the bootp reply
> > > to download in image from a server and then execute that image?
> > > 
> > > If so, as far as i know, RedBoot does not support this. You
> > > could add this though.
> > 
> > I added this two years ago.  I submitted a patch, but the patch
> > was declined.  Those in charge said that some non-existent
> > features in boot scripts were "the right way" to do things.
> > Meanwhile, those script features are still (AFAIK) non-existent.
> 
> Alas, it's sad how some things just never got to happen (...long
> story, don't want to go there)

We all know how that goes.

> > > Reboot understands SREC and ELF images and supports getting an
> > > image from TFTP. All you need to add it code to extract the
> > > filename and server name from the bootp reply and then control
> > > the tftp client code and jump into the image after it has been
> > > loaded.
> > 
> > FWIW, the patch I submitted is at
> > 
> >       http://sources.redhat.com/ml/ecos-discuss/2001-03/msg00227.html
> > 
> > The patch assumes the downloaded file is in SREC format.  The
> > version I actually ship assumes it's a binary file (saves quite
> > a bit on download time).
> 
> I've looked at this patch again and I still think that there are 
> [slightly] better ways to handle this.  I've a little time now, so
> maybe I can actually make it happen this time.

One obvious improvement would be to auto-detect the filetype. I
thought about it, but decided it would be simpler to only allow
one file type, and just tell customers to always convert the
app into a binary image.  That's worked out fine [Except for
the one customer who claims there's no way to do DHCP/TFTP with
a W2K host.  I never did figure out what his damage was.]

Another option I was thinking about would be to treat the
downloaded file as a script rather than an application That way
you could do just put

 load foobar.bin
 go
 
into the file pointed to by BOOTP/DHCP

-- 
Grant Edwards
grante@visi.com

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