pypxeboot: Dom0 PXE bootloader for PV guests

pypxeboot: Dom0 PXE bootloader for PV guests

[Stephen Childs]

Hi,

I wanted to get my para-virtualised VMs integrated into our existing
PXE/kickstart infrastructure so I could do a completely automatic install
of VMs. Having read previous posts on the xen-devel list I realised that
there was nothing I could use off the shelf, so I have put together my own
bootloader which uses a modified udhcpc and tftp to get an IP address and
pxelinux configuration for the guest (before it even exists). If the
pxelinux configuration specifies a network boot, the relevant kernel and
initrd are downloaded using tftp and sxp is generated a la pygrub. If the
pxelinux config specifies a localboot, we fall through to pygrub.

The code now works for me, so I am making it available here:
http://www.cs.tcd.ie/Stephen.Childs/pypxeboot/

Once you have udhcpc and tftp installed it should be very easy to drop it
into an existing pxelinux infrastructure. I'd love some feedback.

I will submit a proper patch soon (probably Monday at this stage) as it
should be a useful complement to pygrub.

Stephen
-- 
Dr. Stephen Childs,
Research Fellow, EGEE Project,    phone:                    +353-1-8961797
Computer Architecture Group,      email:        Stephen.Childs @ cs.tcd.ie
Trinity College Dublin, Ireland   web: http://www.cs.tcd.ie/Stephen.Childs