Ben Stoltz <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > The goal is not to net-boot NT/2000, the goal is to be able to boot those > OSs off of fibre channel. But with a fibre channel disk as directed by a > central management system. > > As it stands, it's not difficult to boot an x86 box (any OS) off of fibre > channel, you just have to hand administrate the box first by staring at > pixels and pounding the keyboard (you have 5 seconds to hit Alt-Q or Alt-E > or Alt-S... oops... try again.) > > This could be done by using a PC Weasel (http://www.realweasel.com/) and > expect scripts, but I'd rather do it correctly. > > I think that it has to be done with a scriptable secondary boot loader that > has access to the appropriate drivers. > The primary boot loader has to be statically configured so as to avoid the > pixel/keyboard configuration problem. > That leaves us with net boot of a secondary loader. The secondary loader > needs to be Linux based in order to have access to current fibre channel > drivers. Then, either the OS's native loader can be read from the final root > disk, or if the Linux-based loader knows how to do it, it can load the final > OS.
O.k. Then what you want sounds like is to build on the Linux booting Linux code. That stuff is fairly stable so go ahead. I'm working on getting the support into the core linux kernel but it will take a little while to see what is going on. You might also consider making a option rom that can make the fibre channel a bootable device. From my experience with etherboot it isn't too hard but it is a little different. Eric
