gPXE and GRUB2

gPXE and GRUB2

[Vladimir 'phcoder' Serbinenko]

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Hello, all. I'm currently importing gPXE into grub-extras to allow a
tighter interraction and integration. I would like to discuss
collaboration between our two projects. GRUB2 is under GPLv3+ and gPXE
is mostly GPLv2+-compatible. I will keep the original licences on all
imported files this way improvements made to files originating from gPXE
can find their way back. I see 3 collaboration models:
1) I import all files we need and which are under compatible licence. We
keep licences, notify you about improvements which may be worth
incorporating into gPXE
2) I write a python script which does automatic importing and adds few
GRUB-specific patches. This way syncronisation is easier. Patches which
aren't GRUB-specific would be redirected to gPXE
3) Add a secondary target to gPXE to produce series of GRUB modules. Due
to big differences between build systems this may be problematic and
result in frequent breakage

Of course any GPLv2-only file is excluded from this collaboration.
Currently I haven't finished importing so don't know which files may
pose problem and that I'll have to rewrite or import from a different
source. Currently I have following problems:
1) Some files like netl/mii.c are labeled as GPL without explicit version
2) Some files like net/ftp.c, net/icmpv6.c, net/ipv6.c, net/ndp.c and
include/gpxe/ndp.h
Would it be possible to clarify their legal status, if possible opt for
GPLv2+ or 2-clause BSDL
3) include/gpxe/list.h is under GPLv2-only. I already created a
workalike for it from scratch so it's not very important but would still
be nice if we could share this code one way or another.
4) A lot of drivers are GPLv2-only. Would it be possible to relicence
them as GPLv2+ ?

Technical comments are welcome too. Currently I imported directories net
and include/gpxe omitting files under unclear licence or GPLv2-only as
well as files core/base64.c, core/uri.c and core/uuid.c. The whole still
has 94 unresolved symbols and I'll work on fixing it.

Thanks in advance
Vladimir 'phcoder' Serbinenko



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Re: gPXE and GRUB2

[Robert Millan]

On Sat, Nov 14, 2009 at 12:28:01AM +0100, Vladimir 'phcoder' Serbinenko wrote:
> 3) Add a secondary target to gPXE to produce series of GRUB modules. Due
> to big differences between build systems this may be problematic and
> result in frequent breakage

From a distributor POV, option 3 is difficult to manage.  GRUB doesn't have
a stable ABI and ensuring coherency between two separate packages can be
problematic.  I wouldn't recommend this option.

-- 
Robert Millan

  The DRM opt-in fallacy: "Your data belongs to us. We will decide when (and
  how) you may access your data; but nobody's threatening your freedom: we
  still allow you to remove your data and not access it at all."

Re: [Etherboot-developers] gPXE and GRUB2

[Vladimir 'phcoder' Serbinenko]

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Thomas Miletich wrote:
> Hello
>
> On Sat, Nov 14, 2009 at 12:28 AM, Vladimir 'phcoder' Serbinenko
> <phcoder@gmail.com> wrote:
>   
>> Hello, all. I'm currently importing gPXE into grub-extras to allow a
>> tighter interraction and integration. I would like to discuss
>> collaboration between our two projects.
>>     
>
> To be clear, what is the goal goal of this project? I assume the goal
> is to have networking functions in GRUB 2, as it was the case for GRUB
> using the etherboot code. Is that correct?
>   
The goal is to have networking in GRUB2 and it being easily accessible
from e.g. boot scripts. This would allow usage cases like:
dhcp
configfile (http,mydistro.org)/grub2/netinstall.cfg
Such usage cases make netbook recovery easy if e.g. disk failure.
One of my current goals is to do this for Yeeloong. It has mipsel CPU
and AFAIK gPXE isn't ported to this platform but GRUB2 partially is (I'm
working on it). If GRUB2 is in ROM this makes an intuitive recovery system
Similar goal can be achieved on coreboot too.
As Thomas proposed perhaps we could do an IRC meeting about this
subject. If you're interested reply this e-mail saying when you're available
> I think the fastest way to make GRUB2 use gPXE's networking features
> is to use both of them as they currently are. GRUB2 can be integrated
> as a embedded image into gPXE. gPXE boots, does a DHCP requests,
> executes a PXE capable GRUB 2 image and GRUB 2 uses the standard PXE
> functions.
>   
It's a good usage. Unfortunately it doesn't allow gPXE to accompany us
on all supported platforms and makes installation a bit tricky.
> This approach works pretty well in the form of gpxelinux. gpxelinux is
> basically a gPXE image with pxelinux.0 from the syslinux suite
> integrated. This way pxelinux.0 is also able to use the more advanced
> features of gPXE, like HTTP.
> This also eliminates the problem of getting patches upstream, as both
> codebases would be independent. syslinux includes a mainline gPXE code
> directory; the Makefile builds gPXE and embeds pxelinux.0 to create
> gpxelinux. Once in a while you do a git pull to keep the gPXE code up
> to date. Patches can go directly to the etherboot project.
>
> I don't know if you want the long-term solution to look like this, but
> this approach could be a short-term solution to get it up and running
> without spending too much time in adapting the gPXE code to GRUB.
> I also don't know if this works with your license policy.
>
> There are also still problems preventing GRUB 2 from running with
> gPXE. Please have a look at the thread at
> http://etherboot.org/pipermail/gpxe/2009-November/000008.html
> Having someone looking into this from the GRUB side of things would be helpful.
>
>
>   
After I finish some of high-priority pending tasks I'll look into it
>> <snip>
>> 4) A lot of drivers are GPLv2-only. Would it be possible to relicence
>> them as GPLv2+ ?
>>
>>     
>
> Many drivers are still from Etherboot, and therefore quite old. I
> don't think it will be easy to reach all the copyright holders of a
> driver. Most drivers are derived from Linux and the original authors
> would have to be asked too.
>
>
> Thanks
> Thomas
>
>   


-- 
Regards
Vladimir 'phcoder' Serbinenko



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Re: [Etherboot-developers] gPXE and GRUB2

[Robert Millan]

On Sat, Nov 14, 2009 at 04:57:44PM +0100, Vladimir 'phcoder' Serbinenko wrote:
> > I think the fastest way to make GRUB2 use gPXE's networking features
> > is to use both of them as they currently are. GRUB2 can be integrated
> > as a embedded image into gPXE. gPXE boots, does a DHCP requests,
> > executes a PXE capable GRUB 2 image and GRUB 2 uses the standard PXE
> > functions.

Sure, we can do this.  But since both projects are free software, it seems
to me that source-level integration can provide the best experience to our
users.

That aside, our use of PXE facilities is a bit temporary.  In the future
we'd like to use free drivers rather than reliing on preinstalled, buggy
firmware blobs (gPXE sets a good example that this approach is viable).

> > There are also still problems preventing GRUB 2 from running with
> > gPXE. Please have a look at the thread at
> > http://etherboot.org/pipermail/gpxe/2009-November/000008.html
> > Having someone looking into this from the GRUB side of things would be helpful.

If he followed the instructions in http://grub.enbug.org/PXEBOOT it is
to be expected that GRUB only starts in rescue mode, because that's what
the selection of modules in that page provides.

I don't think there's anything wrong in either gPXE or GRUB; perhaps the
wiki page :-)

-- 
Robert Millan

  The DRM opt-in fallacy: "Your data belongs to us. We will decide when (and
  how) you may access your data; but nobody's threatening your freedom: we
  still allow you to remove your data and not access it at all."

Re: [Etherboot-developers] gPXE and GRUB2

[Robert Millan]

On Sat, Nov 14, 2009 at 07:03:51PM +0100, Thomas Miletich wrote:
> On Sat, Nov 14, 2009 at 6:38 PM, Robert Millan <rmh@aybabtu.com> wrote:
> > If he followed the instructions in http://grub.enbug.org/PXEBOOT it is
> > to be expected that GRUB only starts in rescue mode, because that's what
> > the selection of modules in that page provides.
> >
> > I don't think there's anything wrong in either gPXE or GRUB; perhaps the
> > wiki page :-)
> 
> Loading the same GRUB 2 file that fails with gPXE works with a vendor
> PXE rom. GRUB tries to fetch the file normal.mod over tftp, which gPXE
> does. It fails to load normal.mod and goes to rescue mode then. It
> doesn't fall back to rescue mode with a vendor PXE.
> There are more details in the follow-up mails to
> http://etherboot.org/pipermail/gpxe/2009-November/000008.html

Ah, I see.  Well, as I said in previous mail, our support for using PXE
callbacks is a temporary hack.  Our long-term goal is to replace it
completely with standalone free drivers.

So in this case, we'd use gPXE all the same but with a more efficient (and
less error-prone) interface :-)

That said, we're still going to carry with legacy support for a while, so
if someone wants to debug this and figure out what's wrong, that'd be most
welcome.

-- 
Robert Millan

  The DRM opt-in fallacy: "Your data belongs to us. We will decide when (and
  how) you may access your data; but nobody's threatening your freedom: we
  still allow you to remove your data and not access it at all."

Re: [Etherboot-developers] gPXE and GRUB2

[Arends, R.R.]

Hi Thomas,

I had the same issue after following that wiki and loading the grub2pxe from gpxe. 

You can fix it by renaming the grub2pxe file to grub2pxe.0, then the pxestack of gpxe stays intact and it will try to load the needed mod's from your tftp server (next-server).
I didn't manage to get grub loadings its files over gpxe http yet tho... So if anyone else managed that, i would like to know how :D. 

Best regards,

Rene Arends

>>> On 14-11-2009 at 19:03, in message
<422fdd8a0911141003j3839662dm30489e08e87da90e@mail.gmail.com>, Thomas Miletich
<thomas.miletich@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Sat, Nov 14, 2009 at 6:38 PM, Robert Millan <rmh@aybabtu.com> wrote:
>> If he followed the instructions in http://grub.enbug.org/PXEBOOT it is
>> to be expected that GRUB only starts in rescue mode, because that's what
>> the selection of modules in that page provides.
>>
>> I don't think there's anything wrong in either gPXE or GRUB; perhaps the
>> wiki page :-)
> 
> Loading the same GRUB 2 file that fails with gPXE works with a vendor
> PXE rom. GRUB tries to fetch the file normal.mod over tftp, which gPXE
> does. It fails to load normal.mod and goes to rescue mode then. It
> doesn't fall back to rescue mode with a vendor PXE.
> There are more details in the follow-up mails to
> http://etherboot.org/pipermail/gpxe/2009-November/000008.html 
> 
> Thomas
> 
>> --
>> Robert Millan
>>
> 
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Re: [Etherboot-developers] gPXE and GRUB2

[Arends, R.R.]

Thomas,

Ah yes your right. I'm doing it the gpxelinux way. Gpxe -> pxelinux ->  grub2 (vesamenu entry).

Rene

PS: sorry for the double post

>>> On 19-11-2009 at 10:53, in message
<422fdd8a0911190153qa7c58bcle4780880401b1720@mail.gmail.com>, Thomas Miletich
<thomas.miletich@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi
> The .0 postfix is used by pxelinux to indicate a NBP. gPXE will not
> use the filename as an indication of the image type. gPXE will
> autodetect the image type. As long as multiboot support is compiled
> in, it will always conclude it's a multiboot kernel.
> 
> Loading pxelinux from gPXE and letting pxelinux load grub2pxe.0 is way
> to use an unmodified GRUB 2 and gPXE image.
> 
> Thanks for bringing up this idea
> Thomas
> 
> On Thu, Nov 19, 2009 at 10:03 AM, Arends, R.R. <r.r.arends@hro.nl> wrote:
>> Hi Thomas,
>>
>> I had the same issue after following that wiki and loading the grub2pxe from 
> gpxe.
>>
>> You can fix it by renaming the grub2pxe file to grub2pxe.0, then the 
> pxestack of gpxe stays intact and it will try to load the needed mod's from 
> your tftp server (next-server).
>> I didn't manage to get grub loadings its files over gpxe http yet tho... So 
> if anyone else managed that, i would like to know how :D.
>>
>> Best regards,
>>
>> Rene Arends
>>
>>
> 
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Let Crystal Reports handle the reporting - Free Crystal Reports 2008 30-Day 
> trial. Simplify your report design, integration and deployment - and focus on 
> 
> what you do best, core application coding. Discover what's new with
> Crystal Reports now.  http://p.sf.net/sfu/bobj-july 
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