Format of bootable Indy CDs?

Format of bootable Indy CDs?

[Alex deVries]

I'm curious about the possibility of making a Linux installer for the 
Indy that boots from CD; is there any description of the format of 
bootable IRIX CDs out there?  What does the firmware expect?

I know that sash is involved somehow...


- Alex

-- 
Alex deVries
Principal Architect, Linuxcare Canada, Inc.
(613) 562 2759

Linuxcare. Simplifying Server Consolidation.

Re: Format of bootable Indy CDs?

[Florian Lohoff]

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On Thu, Sep 26, 2002 at 03:32:26AM -0400, Alex deVries wrote:
> I'm curious about the possibility of making a Linux installer for the 
> Indy that boots from CD; is there any description of the format of 
> bootable IRIX CDs out there?  What does the firmware expect?

The firmware loads an ecoff file from a volume header - The volume
header is a special partition with a "minimalistic" filesystem
in it - This can be modified by "dvhtool". 

I succeeded in booting an indy by creating a fake "volume header"
on the ISO filesystem CD. (ISO Specifies the first 8k of an image
to be for the bootloader and partitioning etc). Then i created
directory entrys for the kernels on the iso in the pseudo
volume header. As the ISO filesystems needs all files to be
contigues (same for the volume header) the machine was able
to boot from the cd although booting the ecoff kernel image
including the ramdisk directly. Having a bootloader would
be much nicer.

> I know that sash is involved somehow...

"sash" is proprietary IRIX. The IRIX CDs are EFS BTW.

If you plan to work on this - Feel free to come around in
Oldenburg this weekend - We will have a Kernel Hacker meeting
in the University Oldenburg. I'll bring a Burner and CD-RW's 
with me to test this.

Flo
-- 
Florian Lohoff                  flo@rfc822.org             +49-5201-669912
                        Heisenberg may have been here.

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Re: Format of bootable Indy CDs?

[Alex deVries]

Florian Lohoff wrote:
> The firmware loads an ecoff file from a volume header - The volume
> header is a special partition with a "minimalistic" filesystem
> in it - This can be modified by "dvhtool". 

Okay.  I see an example of that mentioned in your mail in
http://lists.debian.org/debian-mips/2002/debian-mips-200204/msg00056.html
.  That seems to match with an EFS volume header.

So making a tool that writes the 8k volume header is easy.  If I 
understand properly, that points to a filename on the EFS filesystem 
that follows it.

What open source tools do we have to create such an EFS filesystem?

> If you plan to work on this - Feel free to come around in
> Oldenburg this weekend - We will have a Kernel Hacker meeting
> in the University Oldenburg. I'll bring a Burner and CD-RW's 
> with me to test this.

Sadly, I have other plans this weekend.


- Alex



-- 
Alex deVries
Principal Architect, Linuxcare Canada, Inc.
(613) 562 2759

Linuxcare. Simplifying Server Consolidation.

Re: Format of bootable Indy CDs?

[Ralf Baechle]

On Thu, Sep 26, 2002 at 03:20:06PM -0400, Alex deVries wrote:

Nice to hear from you again after years of silence.

> So making a tool that writes the 8k volume header is easy.  If I 
> understand properly, that points to a filename on the EFS filesystem 
> that follows it.
> 
> What open source tools do we have to create such an EFS filesystem?

None.  The in-kernel EFS filesystem is read-only.

  Ralf

Re: Format of bootable Indy CDs?

[Alex deVries]

Ralf Baechle wrote:
> On Thu, Sep 26, 2002 at 03:20:06PM -0400, Alex deVries wrote
>>What open source tools do we have to create such an EFS filesystem?
> 
> None.  The in-kernel EFS filesystem is read-only.

Okay.  Let me look at that.

EFS seems pretty simple, but is there a filesystem described apart from 
the .h files?


- Alex



-- 
Alex deVries
Principal Architect, Linuxcare Canada, Inc.
(613) 562 2759

Linuxcare. Simplifying Server Consolidation.

Re: Format of bootable Indy CDs?

[Ralf Baechle]

On Thu, Sep 26, 2002 at 05:03:05PM -0400, Alex deVries wrote:

> > On Thu, Sep 26, 2002 at 03:20:06PM -0400, Alex deVries wrote
> >>What open source tools do we have to create such an EFS filesystem?
> > 
> > None.  The in-kernel EFS filesystem is read-only.
> 
> Okay.  Let me look at that.
> 
> EFS seems pretty simple, but is there a filesystem described apart from 
> the .h files?

No.  EFS is not a very complex filesystem, roughly as complex as for example
UFS.

However later PROMs also know about XFS I think and that's the trivial
case.  Anyway, as afair the EFS CDROMs are partitioned like disks a
bootloader there could also be made to contain something like libext2fs and
boot the rest of a ext2 on the CDROM.  ISOfs if you have a nice library
to use for that.

  Ralf

Re: Format of bootable Indy CDs?

[Florian Lohoff]

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On Thu, Sep 26, 2002 at 03:20:06PM -0400, Alex deVries wrote:
> Florian Lohoff wrote:
> >The firmware loads an ecoff file from a volume header - The volume
> >header is a special partition with a "minimalistic" filesystem
> >in it - This can be modified by "dvhtool". 
> 
> Okay.  I see an example of that mentioned in your mail in
> http://lists.debian.org/debian-mips/2002/debian-mips-200204/msg00056.html
> .  That seems to match with an EFS volume header.
> 
> So making a tool that writes the 8k volume header is easy.  If I 
> understand properly, that points to a filename on the EFS filesystem 
> that follows it.
> 
> What open source tools do we have to create such an EFS filesystem?

None .. Its not EFS - The Volume Header filesystem is MUCH simpler ...

Look into dvhtool to understand it ...

Flo
-- 
Florian Lohoff                  flo@rfc822.org             +49-5201-669912
                        Heisenberg may have been here.

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Re: Format of bootable Indy CDs?

[Michael Hill]

On Thu, 2002-09-26 at 15:20, Alex deVries wrote:

> Florian Lohoff wrote:

> > If you plan to work on this - Feel free to come around in
> > Oldenburg this weekend - We will have a Kernel Hacker meeting
> > in the University Oldenburg. I'll bring a Burner and CD-RW's 
> > with me to test this.
> 
> Sadly, I have other plans this weekend.

I'd like to volunteer.

Mike

Re: Format of bootable Indy CDs?

[Mike Nugent]

Could we not just make an image file with an arcboot header and burn
that to cd?

On Thu, 2002-09-26 at 10:10, Florian Lohoff wrote:
> On Thu, Sep 26, 2002 at 03:32:26AM -0400, Alex deVries wrote:
> > I'm curious about the possibility of making a Linux installer for the 
> > Indy that boots from CD; is there any description of the format of 
> > bootable IRIX CDs out there?  What does the firmware expect?
> 
> The firmware loads an ecoff file from a volume header - The volume
> header is a special partition with a "minimalistic" filesystem
> in it - This can be modified by "dvhtool". 
> 
> I succeeded in booting an indy by creating a fake "volume header"
> on the ISO filesystem CD. (ISO Specifies the first 8k of an image
> to be for the bootloader and partitioning etc). Then i created
> directory entrys for the kernels on the iso in the pseudo
> volume header. As the ISO filesystems needs all files to be
> contigues (same for the volume header) the machine was able
> to boot from the cd although booting the ecoff kernel image
> including the ramdisk directly. Having a bootloader would
> be much nicer.
> 
> > I know that sash is involved somehow...
> 
> "sash" is proprietary IRIX. The IRIX CDs are EFS BTW.
> 
> If you plan to work on this - Feel free to come around in
> Oldenburg this weekend - We will have a Kernel Hacker meeting
> in the University Oldenburg. I'll bring a Burner and CD-RW's 
> with me to test this.
> 

I'd be interested in working on this, but I'm not 100% sure that I know
enough about my indigo2 yet.  I'll start by seeing what I can do with
arcboot.

-- 
Mike Nugent
Programmer/Author
mike@illuminatus.org
"I believe the use of noise to make music will increase until we reach a music produced through the aid of electrical instruments which will make available for musical purposes any and all sounds that can be heard."
 -- composer John Cage, 1937

Re: Format of bootable Indy CDs?

[Florian Lohoff]

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On Thu, Sep 26, 2002 at 05:23:32PM -0700, Mike Nugent wrote:
> 
> I'd be interested in working on this, but I'm not 100% sure that I know
> enough about my indigo2 yet.  I'll start by seeing what I can do with
> arcboot.
> 

Grab SILO or PALO - Both have enough ISO9660 support to load a file
from an ISO image - Then look at the existing ARCBOOT code and make some
kind of minimalistic "filesystem detection" of the devices media.

Flo
-- 
Florian Lohoff                  flo@rfc822.org             +49-5201-669912
                        Heisenberg may have been here.

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Re: Format of bootable Indy CDs?

[Florian Lohoff]

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On Thu, Sep 26, 2002 at 03:32:26AM -0400, Alex deVries wrote:
> I'm curious about the possibility of making a Linux installer for the 
> Indy that boots from CD; is there any description of the format of 
> bootable IRIX CDs out there?  What does the firmware expect?
> 
> I know that sash is involved somehow...

Ok - i reworked the procedure a bit whil beeing in Oldenburg.

flo@split:~/projects/boot$ mkisofs -J -R -V testboot -o iso
tftpboot-r4k-ip22.img
Total translation table size: 0
Total rockridge attributes bytes: 262
Total directory bytes: 0
Path table size(bytes): 10
Max brk space used 6644
2208 extents written (4 Mb)
flo@split:~/projects/boot$ isoinfo -l -R -i iso

Directory listing of /
dr-xr-xr-x   2 1750 1750             2048 Sep 27 2002 [    28]  .
?---------   0 1750 1750             2048 Sep 27 2002 [    28]  ..
-rwxr-xr-x   1 1750 1750          4414116 Sep 12 2002 [    31] tftpboot-r4k-ip22.img
flo@split:~/projects/boot$ echo $[ 31 * 4 ]
124
flo@split:~/projects/boot$ genisovh-0.1/genisovh iso sashARCS:124,4414116 ip22:124,4414116

The last command adds a "volume header" in the first 512 byte into the
iso file. This volume header spans the whole iso filesystem and lists 2
files at identical positions which is the ECOFF tftpboot-r4k-ip22.img.
The name sashARCS is coded in the Indys prom for the installer when
using your mouse and "Install System Software" and "Local cdrom".

Now one needs to write a wrapper for the Indy bootfloppys aka debian-cd
to produce bootable cds.

I put up the stuff:

http://www.silicon-verl.de/home/flo/software/ip22test.iso
http://www.silicon-verl.de/home/flo/software/genisovh-0.1.tgz

Flo
-- 
Florian Lohoff                  flo@rfc822.org             +49-5201-669912
                        Heisenberg may have been here.

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Re: Format of bootable Indy CDs?

[Florian Lohoff]

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On Fri, Sep 27, 2002 at 06:00:00PM +0200, Florian Lohoff wrote:
> Now one needs to write a wrapper for the Indy bootfloppys aka debian-cd
> to produce bootable cds.
> 
> I put up the stuff:
> 
> http://www.silicon-verl.de/home/flo/software/ip22test.iso
> http://www.silicon-verl.de/home/flo/software/genisovh-0.1.tgz

BTW: I was not able to boot from a cd-rom drive which was not able to 
read 512 byte blocked. Burning on a 2048 byte blocked burner is no
problem though.

Flo
-- 
Florian Lohoff                  flo@rfc822.org             +49-5201-669912
                        Heisenberg may have been here.

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Re: Format of bootable Indy CDs?

[Alex deVries]

Florian,

Cool! As soon as I can find a 512-byte ro CDROM, I'll try this.

I've got part of mkefs working, BTW, which I realize is not required to 
make bootable CDs, but might be helpful anyway.

- Alex


Florian Lohoff wrote:
> On Thu, Sep 26, 2002 at 03:32:26AM -0400, Alex deVries wrote:
> 
>>I'm curious about the possibility of making a Linux installer for the 
>>Indy that boots from CD; is there any description of the format of 
>>bootable IRIX CDs out there?  What does the firmware expect?
>>
>>I know that sash is involved somehow...
> 
> 
> Ok - i reworked the procedure a bit whil beeing in Oldenburg.
> 
> flo@split:~/projects/boot$ mkisofs -J -R -V testboot -o iso
> tftpboot-r4k-ip22.img
> Total translation table size: 0
> Total rockridge attributes bytes: 262
> Total directory bytes: 0
> Path table size(bytes): 10
> Max brk space used 6644
> 2208 extents written (4 Mb)
> flo@split:~/projects/boot$ isoinfo -l -R -i iso
> 
> Directory listing of /
> dr-xr-xr-x   2 1750 1750             2048 Sep 27 2002 [    28]  .
> ?---------   0 1750 1750             2048 Sep 27 2002 [    28]  ..
> -rwxr-xr-x   1 1750 1750          4414116 Sep 12 2002 [    31] tftpboot-r4k-ip22.img
> flo@split:~/projects/boot$ echo $[ 31 * 4 ]
> 124
> flo@split:~/projects/boot$ genisovh-0.1/genisovh iso sashARCS:124,4414116 ip22:124,4414116
> 
> The last command adds a "volume header" in the first 512 byte into the
> iso file. This volume header spans the whole iso filesystem and lists 2
> files at identical positions which is the ECOFF tftpboot-r4k-ip22.img.
> The name sashARCS is coded in the Indys prom for the installer when
> using your mouse and "Install System Software" and "Local cdrom".
> 
> Now one needs to write a wrapper for the Indy bootfloppys aka debian-cd
> to produce bootable cds.
> 
> I put up the stuff:
> 
> http://www.silicon-verl.de/home/flo/software/ip22test.iso
> http://www.silicon-verl.de/home/flo/software/genisovh-0.1.tgz
> 
> Flo



-- 
Alex deVries
Principal Architect, Linuxcare Canada, Inc.
(613) 562 2759

Linuxcare. Simplifying Server Consolidation.

Re: Format of bootable Indy CDs?

[Len Sorensen]

On Fri, Sep 27, 2002 at 12:22:32PM -0400, Alex deVries wrote:
> Cool! As soon as I can find a 512-byte ro CDROM, I'll try this.
> 
> I've got part of mkefs working, BTW, which I realize is not required to 
> make bootable CDs, but might be helpful anyway.

Any plextor scsi drive should do.  It has a jumper to enable 512byte
block access.  They can be bought for fairly cheap for read only drives.

Len Sorensen

Re: Format of bootable Indy CDs?

[Alex deVries]

Florian Lohoff wrote:
> BTW: I was not able to boot from a cd-rom drive which was not able to 
> read 512 byte blocked. Burning on a 2048 byte blocked burner is no
> problem though.

I have a cdrom connected to my Indy which has been configured to 512.  I 
think this hw is good, but will double check when I find an IRIX CD. 
When I boot, it complains "invalid partition".

I wrote the ISO you posted on an i386 box with cdrecord.  I suspect my 
problem I didn't use set the blocksize to 512; exactly how did you burn 
this CD?


- Alex

-- 
Alex deVries
Principal Architect, Linuxcare Canada, Inc.
(613) 562 2759

Linuxcare. Simplifying Server Consolidation.

Re: Format of bootable Indy CDs?

[Florian Lohoff]

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On Fri, Sep 27, 2002 at 05:08:15PM -0400, Alex deVries wrote:
> I have a cdrom connected to my Indy which has been configured to 512.  I 
> think this hw is good, but will double check when I find an IRIX CD. 
> When I boot, it complains "invalid partition".
> 
> I wrote the ISO you posted on an i386 box with cdrecord.  I suspect my 
> problem I didn't use set the blocksize to 512; exactly how did you burn 
> this CD?

cdrecord with xcdroast - But burning does not care about block sizes it
seems.

Can you try to dump the volume header with "decodevh" from

http://amaya.mediaways.net/homes/flo/software/decodevh.tgz

Compile and decode with

devodevh /dev/scd0

Flo
-- 
Florian Lohoff                  flo@rfc822.org             +49-5201-669912
                        Heisenberg may have been here.

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Re: Format of bootable Indy CDs?

[Maciej W. Rozycki]

On Fri, 27 Sep 2002, Alex deVries wrote:

> I wrote the ISO you posted on an i386 box with cdrecord.  I suspect my 
> problem I didn't use set the blocksize to 512; exactly how did you burn 
> this CD?

 Blocks on CD media are always 2048 bytes long (disregarding correction
data).  The 512-byte block size as implemented by a few CD drives is
simply an ability to present chunks of native blocks in 512-byte amounts. 
This is just an artifical feature to fulfill a requirement of broken
firmware that asserts that disks have 512-byte sectors.

-- 
+  Maciej W. Rozycki, Technical University of Gdansk, Poland   +
+--------------------------------------------------------------+
+        e-mail: macro@ds2.pg.gda.pl, PGP key available        +