[QUESTION] Is an ib_sbft kernel module needed to be made? (For booting using SRP)

[QUESTION] Is an ib_sbft kernel module needed to be made? (For booting using SRP)

[james harvey]

I'm looking to boot using SRP.  I've spent a lot of time looking, and
am not seeing that anyone has actually done this.  Really surprises
me, actually.

iPXE is able to make the SRP connection, load the kernel and
initramfs, and leaves behind a SRP boot firmware table as described at
http://ipxe.org/srp/sbft

But, I don't see anything that finds, reads, or uses it.  So then then
remote drive is no longer seen.

I see iSCSI handles this problem through the kernel module iscsi_ibft
which gives a sysfs interface to iSCSI's BFT structure.

I'm somewhat interested in developing the ib_sbft kernel module, if
I'm not missing an existing alternative to allow SRP booting.  I
expect I could work from the iscsi_ibft kernel module source to be
able to accomplish this, making the necessary changes based on the
sBFT documentation and iPXE's sBFT-creating source.

Is anyone else who has done kernel development interested in taking
that on, or is it something I should start working on?

If I had it working on my system, is there someone who would be
willing to review/test/revise it to sign it to be pulled by Linus?
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Re: [QUESTION] Is an ib_sbft kernel module needed to be made? (For booting using SRP)

[Leon Romanovsky]

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On Mon, Jul 18, 2016 at 10:13:15PM -0400, james harvey wrote:
> I'm looking to boot using SRP.  I've spent a lot of time looking, and
> am not seeing that anyone has actually done this.  Really surprises
> me, actually.
> 
> iPXE is able to make the SRP connection, load the kernel and
> initramfs, and leaves behind a SRP boot firmware table as described at
> http://ipxe.org/srp/sbft
> 
> But, I don't see anything that finds, reads, or uses it.  So then then
> remote drive is no longer seen.
> 
> I see iSCSI handles this problem through the kernel module iscsi_ibft
> which gives a sysfs interface to iSCSI's BFT structure.
> 
> I'm somewhat interested in developing the ib_sbft kernel module, if
> I'm not missing an existing alternative to allow SRP booting.  I
> expect I could work from the iscsi_ibft kernel module source to be
> able to accomplish this, making the necessary changes based on the
> sBFT documentation and iPXE's sBFT-creating source.
> 
> Is anyone else who has done kernel development interested in taking
> that on, or is it something I should start working on?
> 

Is this ability needed? Do you have real life scenario for this?

Thanks

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Re: [QUESTION] Is an ib_sbft kernel module needed to be made? (For booting using SRP)

[Bart Van Assche]

On 07/18/2016 07:13 PM, james harvey wrote:
> I'm looking to boot using SRP.  I've spent a lot of time looking, and
> am not seeing that anyone has actually done this.  Really surprises
> me, actually.
>
> iPXE is able to make the SRP connection, load the kernel and
> initramfs, and leaves behind a SRP boot firmware table as described at
> http://ipxe.org/srp/sbft
>
> But, I don't see anything that finds, reads, or uses it.  So then then
> remote drive is no longer seen.
>
> I see iSCSI handles this problem through the kernel module iscsi_ibft
> which gives a sysfs interface to iSCSI's BFT structure.
>
> I'm somewhat interested in developing the ib_sbft kernel module, if
> I'm not missing an existing alternative to allow SRP booting.  I
> expect I could work from the iscsi_ibft kernel module source to be
> able to accomplish this, making the necessary changes based on the
> sBFT documentation and iPXE's sBFT-creating source.
>
> Is anyone else who has done kernel development interested in taking
> that on, or is it something I should start working on?
>
> If I had it working on my system, is there someone who would be
> willing to review/test/revise it to sign it to be pulled by Linus?

Hi James,

I'd be glad to help with testing and reviewing if you post an SRP 
equivalent of the iscsi_ibft kernel module.

Bart.
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