Re: Network booting

[Paul Eggleton <paul.eggleton@linux.intel.com>]

Hi Chris,

On Wednesday 31 July 2013 22:25:42 Chris Tapp wrote:
> On 31 Jul 2013, at 21:30, Chris Tapp wrote:
> > Is there an easy way to have a system boot and load the rootfs from a
> > network server?
> > 
> > I'm using an x86 system and can have the kernel and an initrd on it. I
> > would use bootp, but a lot of end users either don't have this or will
> > not allow it to be used. I think it needs to go something like:
> > 
> > 1) Kernel loads the initrd and bring the network up (static or DHCP);
> > 2) The rootfs image can then be download;
> > 3) Some magic then makes this run...
> > 
> > This would allow easy update of the rootfs and makes it non-volatile
> > (which is good for this project).
> > 
> > Does this make sense, or is there a better / easier way to do it?
> 
> Looks like http://ipxe.org/ could be what's needed.

FWIW, a couple of years ago I did write a recipe for ipxe which I successfully
used for over-the-network booting with atom-pc. I never found a proper home
for it though so it's still sitting in one of my poky-contrib branches:

http://git.yoctoproject.org/cgit/cgit.cgi/poky-contrib/tree/meta/recipes-bsp/ipxe?h=paule/ipxe

Feel free to make use of it if it helps you. (I can't promise it hasn't
bitrotted in the time since I wrote it, so it may need tweaking; I notice
I didn't even specify a SRCREV which really should be specified, and
I'm not sure if it's cross-compiling properly either).

Cheers,
Paul

-- 

Paul Eggleton
Intel Open Source Technology Centre