Re: boot loaders for domain != 0

[Anthony Liguori <anthony@codemonkey.ws>]

Ian Pratt wrote:

>Using libext2fs would be nice from a security POV (it's probably not too
>hard to crash Linux getting it to mount a suitably crafted filesystem
>structure), but it doesn't help if the client is using XFS or Reiserfs
>etc (though I'm not sure Grub supports these anyhow). Perhaps insisting
>on an ext3 /boot is OK.
>
>Ian
>  
>
I contemplated doing this for not just grub but also for ISOLinux so 
that you could boot off of a CDROM.  A really intelligent loader would 
determine which Kernel the system is trying to load (i.e. 2.6.10 vs. 
2.4.23) and load an appropriate Xen kernel.

I looked into it a bit and it wouldn't be terribly hard to support boot 
splash screens either.  Like Jeremy, this is on my TODO list but I 
figured I look into this after getting a new set of management tools 
(since this is mostly management-level stuff).

For what it's worth, I think doing a quick mount, read, and then umount 
is the easiest approach since it extends well to doing things like 
peeking at an ISO's contents by mounting an ISO image.  Using libraries 
would probably introduce some nasty dependencies without really gaining 
much...

Regards,

-- 
Anthony Liguori
anthony@codemonkey.ws



-------------------------------------------------------
This SF.Net email is sponsored by: IntelliVIEW -- Interactive Reporting
Tool for open source databases. Create drag-&-drop reports. Save time
by over 75%! Publish reports on the web. Export to DOC, XLS, RTF, etc.
Download a FREE copy at http://www.intelliview.com/go/osdn_nl