TCP timers and telnet

TCP timers and telnet

[Marco Gerards]

Hi,

Lately I have been reading a bit about Open Firmware and that it has
TCP support and support to telnet into an Open firmware box:
http://developer.apple.com/technotes/tn/tn2004.html

So I was thinking, why not add such functionality to GRUB 2?  It's
easy to implement with the networking code I currently have.  The only
thing about it that sucks is that we have to implement multitheading,
kinda...

My idea is that we use the timer interrupt to regularly schedule time
for the TCP timers and the incoming telnet connections.  It will not
be very hard to implement, but we have to think about how to do proper
locking.  We will at least need locking in disk access and for the
loaders.  So only in a small part of GRUB.

What do you guys think?  I think it is not as hard as it sounds now...

Thanks,
Marco

Re: TCP timers and telnet

[Yoshinori K. Okuji]

On Saturday 01 April 2006 18:15, Marco Gerards wrote:
> So I was thinking, why not add such functionality to GRUB 2?  It's
> easy to implement with the networking code I currently have.  The only
> thing about it that sucks is that we have to implement multitheading,
> kinda...

I object to multithreading. It makes our life just harder. I prefer an 
event-driven approach as you suggested before.

Okuji

Re: TCP timers and telnet

[Marco Gerards]

"Yoshinori K. Okuji" <okuji@enbug.org> writes:

> On Saturday 01 April 2006 18:15, Marco Gerards wrote:
>> So I was thinking, why not add such functionality to GRUB 2?  It's
>> easy to implement with the networking code I currently have.  The only
>> thing about it that sucks is that we have to implement multitheading,
>> kinda...
>
> I object to multithreading. It makes our life just harder. I prefer an 
> event-driven approach as you suggested before.

My previous suggestion would have worked, if you didn't telnet into
GRUB.  The current discussion is about having multiple different GRUB
sessions simultaniously.  So in that case you will need locking, etc.

--
Marco

Re: TCP timers and telnet

[Hollis Blanchard]

On Apr 1, 2006, at 10:30 AM, Marco Gerards wrote:

> "Yoshinori K. Okuji" <okuji@enbug.org> writes:
>
>> On Saturday 01 April 2006 18:15, Marco Gerards wrote:
>>> So I was thinking, why not add such functionality to GRUB 2?  It's
>>> easy to implement with the networking code I currently have.  The 
>>> only
>>> thing about it that sucks is that we have to implement multitheading,
>>> kinda...
>>
>> I object to multithreading. It makes our life just harder. I prefer an
>> event-driven approach as you suggested before.
>
> My previous suggestion would have worked, if you didn't telnet into
> GRUB.  The current discussion is about having multiple different GRUB
> sessions simultaniously.  So in that case you will need locking, etc.

What about allowing only a single telnet connection? Or multiple 
connections, but they all show the same session?

-Hollis

Re: TCP timers and telnet

[Tomáš Ebenlendr]

On 1 Duben 2006, 20:31, Hollis Blanchard napsal(a):
> On Apr 1, 2006, at 10:30 AM, Marco Gerards wrote:
>
>> "Yoshinori K. Okuji" <okuji@enbug.org> writes:
>>
>>> On Saturday 01 April 2006 18:15, Marco Gerards wrote:
>>>> So I was thinking, why not add such functionality to GRUB 2?  It's
>>>> easy to implement with the networking code I currently have.  The
>>>> only
>>>> thing about it that sucks is that we have to implement multitheading,
>>>> kinda...
>>>
>>> I object to multithreading. It makes our life just harder. I prefer an
>>> event-driven approach as you suggested before.
>>
>> My previous suggestion would have worked, if you didn't telnet into
>> GRUB.  The current discussion is about having multiple different GRUB
>> sessions simultaniously.  So in that case you will need locking, etc.
>
> What about allowing only a single telnet connection? Or multiple
> connections, but they all show the same session?
>
> -Hollis

I also think that multiHEADing is okay. I think there is no use for
multiUSER (and multitasking). The only thing when you don't want terminals
to "share contents" is when one of them is used for logging. So I propose
that there can be any number of terminals, and widgets (like menus,...)
should be handled by them (so there can be parallel session 80x25, 190x64,
braille and speech...), but controlling grub will be UNIsession, i.e.
selecting menu entry, typing on command line, etc. will show on all heads.

More like 'VNC' but with support for different terminal devices...

-- 
                                            Tomas 'Ebi' Ebenlendr
                                            http://get.to/ebik

Re: TCP timers and telnet

[Marco Gerards]

Marco Gerards <mgerards@xs4all.nl> writes:

> So I was thinking, why not add such functionality to GRUB 2?  It's
> easy to implement with the networking code I currently have.  The only
> thing about it that sucks is that we have to implement multitheading,
> kinda...

[...]

And no-one noticed the date and everyone takes me seriously when I
come forward with crazy ideas.

--
Marco

Re: TCP timers and telnet

[Thomas Schwinge]

On Sun, Apr 02, 2006 at 01:31:37PM +0200, Marco Gerards wrote:
> Marco Gerards <mgerards@xs4all.nl> writes:
> 
> > So I was thinking, why not add such functionality to GRUB 2?  It's
> > easy to implement with the networking code I currently have.  The only
> > thing about it that sucks is that we have to implement multitheading,
> > kinda...
> 
> [...]
> 
> And no-one noticed the date and everyone takes me seriously when I
> come forward with crazy ideas.

To me it sounded useful enough to take you seriously.  (Not the multiple
simultaneous sessions, though.)  :-)


Regards,
 Thomas