Subject: Re: NFS diskless boot improvement
To: Gordon W. Ross <gwr@mc.com>
From: Adam Glass <glass@sun-lamp.cs.berkeley.edu>
List: tech-kern
Date: 03/14/1994 10:00:28
> Theo Deraadt asked if I had thought about adding booparamd support
> to the kernel as well.  I'd like to hear peoples ideas about how
> such functionality should be organized.  If this has all been hashed
> out already, please point me to the relevant message archives.
> 

well, i guess i should admit that i've taken your stuff + some work of
my own and have taken the bootparam in the kernel approach.  In
particular, i want to eliminate the need for the boot program to look
in the kernel symbol table for nfs_diskless and hack it.  Thats just
totally stuipd.

> So, to kick things off, here are my thoughts on where things might
> be implemented:  (kernel vs. boot-program)
> 
> The current interface between the boot program and the kernel puts
> most of the burden of boot-time info fetch on the boot program,
> presumably with the rationale that things that are done only once
> during boot should be done by a program that goes away so it does
> not occupy memory.  In general I like this approach, but I think
> it is reasonable to make an exception for the mountd RPCs because
> doing these in the kernel makes the interface to the kernel so much
> more friendly to either the boot program or to a user (boot -a).
> 
> I think the remaining boot-time information gathering burden might
> still just as well remain the responsibility of the boot program,
> at least for most systems.  Perhaps we should make exception for
> Sun systems for compatibility.  I tried to make the nfs_callrpc
> function reusable so it should not be hard to add bootparams RPC
> support.  I wasn't sure how welcome all this new code would be.
> 

i' just got finished adding the bootparam code to your stuff.  Also
added some reverse arp support.

> So, where should the bootparamd and bootp client code go?
> 
> Gordon W. Ross  		Mercury Computer Systems
> gwr@mc.com      		199 Riverneck Road
> 508-256-1300			Chelmsford, MA 01824-2820

I'll explain my feelings on this last question a bit later.

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