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Re: [Xen-devel] [RFC] Bootloader configuration

To: xen-devel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: [Xen-devel] [RFC] Bootloader configuration
From: Hollis Blanchard <hollisb@xxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Wed, 1 Mar 2006 17:10:58 -0600
Cc: Tim Deegan <Tim.Deegan@xxxxxxxxxxxx>, John Levon <levon@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
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On Tuesday 28 February 2006 14:40, John Levon wrote:
> On Tue, Feb 28, 2006 at 08:31:55PM +0000, Tim Deegan wrote:
> 
> > A grub port (or similar) seems like the most useful thing.
> 
> Right. AFAIK nobody is working on this right now.

GRUB already implements its own read-only filesystem drivers for a variety of 
filesystems. It sounds like your "readfs" would be duplicating this work.

> >  The less dom0 has to understand about domU's kernel/fs peculiarities,
> >  and the less fs, config and loader code that needs to be rewritten
> >  just for Xen, the better.

I suppose it would also be nice not to need dom0 access to modify a domU's 
kernel.

GRUB2 is conveniently very modular. You implement a block driver (Open 
Firmware and BIOS drivers are already implemented), and then the filesystem 
drivers "just work." You would want to write a small "blkfront" driver and 
see exactly how little code you can get away with.

I am a GRUB2 developer and would be happy to help if you have questions.

-- 
Hollis Blanchard
IBM Linux Technology Center

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