Re: Univeral Protocol Driver (using UNDI) in Linux

From: H. Peter Anvin
Date: Mon Aug 07 2006 - 14:15:21 EST


Jan Engelhardt wrote:
Agreed. But still having a single driver for all the NICs would be
simply GREAT for my setup, in which all the PCs will be booted using
PXE only. So apart from performance / relilability issues, what are
the technical roadblocks in this?

Netboot, in the current world, could be done like this:

1. Grab the PXE ROM code chip manufacturers offer in case your network card does not support booting via PXE yet and write it to an EPROM which most PCI network cards have a socket for

2. Use PXELINUX, boot that with the help of the PXE ROM code

3. Put all drivers needed into the kernel or initrd; or send out different initrds depending on the DHCP info the PXE client sent.


There is a program called "ethersel" included with PXELINUX which can be used to send out different initrds depending on an enumeration of PCI space.

-hpa
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