WARNING - OLD ARCHIVES

This is an archived copy of the Xen.org mailing list, which we have preserved to ensure that existing links to archives are not broken. The live archive, which contains the latest emails, can be found at http://lists.xen.org/
   
 
 
Xen 
 
Home Products Support Community News
 
   
 

xen-devel

[Xen-devel] RFC/Patch: Support for other bootloaders

To: xen-devel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [Xen-devel] RFC/Patch: Support for other bootloaders
From: Michal Ostrowski <mostrows@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Mon, 21 Mar 2005 10:46:02 -0500
Delivery-date: Mon, 21 Mar 2005 15:48:00 +0000
Envelope-to: www-data@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
List-archive: <http://sourceforge.net/mailarchive/forum.php?forum=xen-devel>
List-help: <mailto:xen-devel-request@lists.sourceforge.net?subject=help>
List-id: List for Xen developers <xen-devel.lists.sourceforge.net>
List-post: <mailto:xen-devel@lists.sourceforge.net>
List-subscribe: <https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/xen-devel>, <mailto:xen-devel-request@lists.sourceforge.net?subject=subscribe>
List-unsubscribe: <https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/xen-devel>, <mailto:xen-devel-request@lists.sourceforge.net?subject=unsubscribe>
Sender: xen-devel-admin@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
I need to net-boot xen on an HS20 blade.  HS20's have a Broadcom NIC,
which is not supported by grub.  The attached patch allows me to build a
Xen image which I can boot using PXELinux  (and the entire SysLinux
family of boot-loaders).

PXELinux should work with any PXE-enabled NIC and thus does not face the
same driver-support issues as grub.

This functionality is enabled by using the Linux code that is wrapped
around a vmlinux to form a zImage.  I've come up with two ways of doing
this; as part of the xen build, or a seperate shell-script ("mkzen").

Both methods reach into a specified Linux-kernel build tree to grab the
bits for the wrapper.  The result, from the boot-loader's point of view
looks identical to a zImage.

However, running in this environment, Xen must now accept arguments in
the format used between a zImage and a vmlinux and distinguish between
this format and the multi-boot format.

Also, since grub is not being used, loading of multiple modules is not
supported.  Thus I've created a tool to package multiple images, with
parameter lists into a "meta-ramdisk".  My patch also includes code for
Xen to extract multiple images from such a meta-ramdisk.

Comments/suggestions appreciated.

-- 
Michal Ostrowski <mostrows@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>

Attachment: bootloader.patch
Description: Text Data

Attachment: signature.asc
Description: This is a digitally signed message part