RE: GRUB vs BootManage TCP/IP BOOT-PROM

[Malte Forkel]

Hi Kjeld

Unfortenately, TCP/IP BOOT-PROM seems to be very picky on what boot floppy
images to boot from.

Following your suggestion, I created a PXE boot floppy (using
http://www.rom-o-matic.net/5.4.1/) that boots the machine fine from the its
floppy drive. From that floppy I then made a TCP/IP BOOT-PROM boot image
(using their BMIMAGE utility). That image is activated on boot, but then I
get two identical lines "Loading ROM image ........ " and the machine hangs.
Same result when I use the TCP/IP BOOT-PROM intermediate boot loader BPBOOT
to boot the MBR extracted from the PXE boot floppy.

For fun, I tried a boot image created from a FreeDOS boot floppy. That hangs
the machine after printing "FreeDOS".

Additional question: If I could get secondary booting into PXE to work, how
could I specify the file to be downloaded by PXE? The BOOTP filename
parameter is already used to tell TCP/IP BOOT-PROM which file to load for
the primary boot.

Thanks, Malte

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Kjeld Flarup Christensen (ST/LMD)
> [mailto:address@hidden
> Sent: Tuesday, November 15, 2005 8:22 AM
> To: Malte Forkel
> Subject: RE: GRUB vs BootManage TCP/IP BOOT-PROM
>
>
> Hi Malte
>
> It sounds to me like you can grab any floppy, and send the image over
> the network. That will of course not work with GRUB.
> But maybe you could try to use a PXE-boot floppy, and then boot twice.
> There are some PXE-boot floppy images out there.
>
> --------------------- With Regards ------------------
>   Kjeld Flarup (Christensen), Specialist, Software Architecture and
> Technology
>   Ericsson Danmark A/S, PDU MSA
>   Faelledvej 17, DK-7600 Struer, Phone +45 97 86 94 10, Fax
> +45 97 85 44
> 22
> -----------------------------------| A small but great part
> of Ericsson
> |
>
>
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From:
> > address@hidden
> >
> > [mailto:bug-grub-bounces+kjeld.flarup.christensen=ericsson.com
> @gnu.org] On Behalf Of Malte Forkel
> > Sent: 14. november 2005 23:09
> > To: address@hidden
> > Subject: GRUB vs BootManage TCP/IP BOOT-PROM
> >
> > Hi,
> >
> > I have a couple of older PCs that I would like to use as
> > diskless Linux clients. They have a BootManage TCP/IP
> > BOOT-PROM from a company named bootix , formerly Incom GmbH.
> > As far as I understand, this is pre-PXE and has various
> > options to boot a PC. Especially, it can start a boot image
> > (specifically created from a DOS boot disk) or start another
> > boot loader (via a special boot image named BPBOOT). There is
> > plenty of documentation and software for TCP/IP BOOT-PROM at
> > http://www.bootix.com/download/download_en.html.
> >
> > I would like to start GRUB via the TCP/IP BOOT-PROM to profit
> > from GRUB's configurability and flexibility, but have not
> > managed to do so. I would appreciated any suggestions on what
> > to do or try.
> >
> > Here is what if have tried so far. As I know little to
> > nothing about boot loaders, some of these attempts probably
> > look pretty stupid to the expert's eye.
> >
> > Using the TCP/IP BOOT-PROM to boot an image created form a
> > FAT GRUB boot floppy runs into a "GRUB Hard Disk Error". May
> > be GRUB is unable to determine the size of the RAM disk it is
> > running from?
> >
> > Same error occurs when using stage1 as the boot image. Using
> > an adapter in front of stage2
> > (http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-grub/2005-09/msg00033.h
> tml) to make GRUB look like a linux kernel halts the machine or >
> produces garbage after an initial promising "Linux" (with
> > BPBATCH, see below).
> >
> > BPBATCH, as described in the Linux Remote-Boot HowTo, can be
> > used to boot Linux with a TCP/IP BOOT-PROM. I successfully
> > booted an old RedHat 7.2 kernel, but failed with SuSE 2.4 or
> > 2.6 ("Direct booting from floppy is no longer supported.
> > Please use a boot loader") kernels.
> >
> > The TCP/IP BOOT-PROM boot image format seems to be different
> > from those used by Netboot and PXE. I ran into various errors
> > trying nbgrub and pxegrub or images created with mknbi.
> >
> > According to bootix, it should be possible to use the image
> > of a DOS boot disk with loadlin and a Linux kernel. I have
> > not tried this. The image size is limited to 2,880 kb and
> > preparing multiple image(s) is rather tedious and not very flexible.
> >
> > So, how do I run GRUB from the BootManage TCP/IP BOOT-PROM?.
> >
> > Thanks,
> > Malte
> >
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
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> >