From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Anthony Liguori Subject: Re: Building domains as a lesser user (was Re: boot loaders for domain != 0) Date: Thu, 03 Feb 2005 21:29:58 -0600 Message-ID: <4202EC36.8000103@codemonkey.ws> References: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In-Reply-To: Sender: xen-devel-admin@lists.sourceforge.net Errors-To: xen-devel-admin@lists.sourceforge.net List-Unsubscribe: , List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , List-Archive: To: Ian Pratt Cc: Jacob Gorm Hansen , xen-devel@lists.sourceforge.net, katzj@redhat.com List-Id: xen-devel@lists.xenproject.org Ian Pratt wrote: >One fairly simple option is to use Linux as a domU boot loader. Boot >with an intrd, >mount the specified filesystem, read off grub.conf, display a menu over >the xencons, kexec the appropriate kernel. > >I'd have to think through whether kexec would need modifications, but I >believe it uses the same 32 bit kernel entry point that xen/linux does >(no grubby 16bit nastiness). > > Yeah, I think kexec would work but unfortunately it's not part of the kernel yet. It could be folded into Xen but I agree with Jeremy that it seems like overkill. Boot through Linux just to get to a grub screen seems a little strange too. Jacob's two-stage approach would work although it requires a lot of custom code. It also makes it pretty difficult to support new types of loaders. And you still have a point of failure with that "trusted" loader. I don't think you ever really see a graphical boot using this approach either. Getting a system going with xlibs working would basically put you back at the kexec() solution. I've got the user-space boot loader working quite nicely. I want to test at the systems in the office though so I'll post it sometime tomorrow. In the very least, it can be used a data point. It seems like a very appealing solution if the security concerns can be addressed. 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