From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: George Shuklin Subject: pvgrub --> kexec Date: Sat, 19 Nov 2011 07:38:50 +0400 Message-ID: <4EC724CA.7040609@selectel.ru> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; Format="flowed" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Return-path: List-Unsubscribe: , List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Sender: xen-devel-bounces@lists.xensource.com Errors-To: xen-devel-bounces@lists.xensource.com To: xen-devel@lists.xensource.com List-Id: xen-devel@lists.xenproject.org Good day. Right now we have pvgrub and pygrub as loaders. Pygrub is more mature, pvgrub is safer and more 'right' stuff to have. But even the pvgrub is still have one real problem: we need to write our own domU operating system with support of bunch of filesystems, hardly to create interactivity, limited network capabilities (...yep, I can be nice to have networking at boot time). How about different approach? If we run linux with specially crafted initrd, which will look around, see correct partition, mount it (in domU!), get kernel, show menu, do networking and prepare the coffee for admin. After that it will to kexec to found kernel with found initrd with required argument. No any dangerous dom0 manipulation with VDI, no more modules synchronization problem (in case 'external' kernel loading). Easy to create menus (just any ncurses application), ideal pre-boot configuration environment for appliances (I ask user about settings and boot real kernel with asked parameters). The single problem: kexec is not supporting xen.