> -----Original Message----- > From: Michael Brown [mailto:[email protected]] > Sent: Wednesday, June 02, 2010 7:55 AM > To: [email protected] > Cc: Geoff Lywood > Subject: Re: [gPXE-devel] [PATCH] [efi] RFC: gPXE Download Protocol > > On Wednesday 02 Jun 2010 04:23:39 Geoff Lywood wrote: > > Currently, on EFI, the image loading capabilities are fairly limited. In > > particular, once you load up an EFI image, there is no way for that EFI > > image to call back into gPXE in order to use the existing network > stack. > > So, any bootloader would need to either implement its own network > > capabilities, or not use the network at all. > > > > I would like to have an interface to allow EFI bootloaders (such as > elilo) > > to use gPXE's network stack. In my opinion, this warrants creating a > new > > protocol because: - None of the standard EFI protocols support HTTP or > > DNS, both of which are important features to me - An attempt to > implement > > the standard TCPv4 protocol might cause conflicts with the existing > > firmware, because the implementation has to use global variables - The > EFI > > Load File Protocol is unsuitable, because it requires the underlying > > network protocol to be able to determine the file size in advance, > which > > is not always possible, and it does not allow downloads to be > interrupted > > Is there no EFI protocol already in existence that supports a simple > (probably-)blocking stream model (open/read/close)? > > Michael
The closest thing that I know of is the EFI_FILE_PROTOCOL. The main problem that I see with it is that some protocols (multicast TFTP) don't necessarily download the file in a sequential manner. - Geoff _______________________________________________ gPXE-devel mailing list [email protected] http://etherboot.org/mailman/listinfo/gpxe-devel
