Re: Status of UNDI Support

[vincent guffens <v.guffens@imperial.ac.uk>]

Martin Vogt wrote:

>Hello grub2 developers,
>
>
>I just tried pxegrub2, but I found out that the network support
>is missing. (can load pxegrub, but no menu.lst or kernel etc....)
>  
>
hi,

i have been working on netboot support for grub2 for a while and even 
got it working once using code from etherboot.
I am now grubifying the work in order to submit a patch. The PCI support 
is on its way and is going to feature an abstract interface which should 
ease the merging of new implementations.

>My experience with grub1 and the etherboot based nic support,
>is that it does not work well, so I still use pxelinux.
>I always thought that grub2 wont use etheboot and only supports UNDI,
>like pxelinux.
>
>  
>
As far as I know, a lot of  problems related to netboot in grub were 
linked to the fact that  the drivers could not easily be linked together 
as it could  result in grub freezing of behaving improperly. The idea in 
grub2 is still to use the etherboot drivers but not to be limited by 
them. There will be a "glue" layer in order to import the etherboot 
drivers, hopefully with as little modifications as possible, but it will 
be possible to extend that.

>Isnt it possible to re-use some UNDI support from pxelinux and put it
>into grub2?
>
>  
>

I don't know very much about this UNDI support but this is certainly not 
incompatible with using the etherboot drivers for supported cards 
anyway. Grub is very flexible and we can certainly have both support if 
it is worth it.

>regards,
>
>Martin
>
>
>
>
>
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>  
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-- 
		Vincent Guffens
		Intelligent Systems & Networks Group
		Research associate, Imperial College