30 Apr
2004
30 Apr
'04
2:41 p.m.
During imaging, I am going to be grabbing information for our
database such as BIOS service tag from Dell, MAC address, etc.
I may be asked if I can also supply the battery pack serial number.
I've noticed that I can get part of the battery info from under
/proc/acpi/battery/BAT0/info . The 2.4.26 kernel linked on the
udpcast website doesn't include ACPI support, so I'm trying to
compile my own kernel. I've had limited success. I've done
this sort of thing before, just not for a PXE boot environment.
I need to be able to support the ipappend 1 option in default,
and this requires the config option "IP: kernel level autoconfiguration"
and DHCP/BOOTP under it. I'm not sure what network file
system options must be provided. I don't really need
to mount anything on NCP/NFS, etc, but just a normal
PXE boot using initrd. I saw the sample config file for
floppy based boot, but it was not close enough for what
one needs in a PXE boot.
--Donald Teed
30 Apr
30 Apr
3:47 p.m.
begin Friday 30 April 2004 16:41, Donald Teed quote:
During imaging, I am going to be grabbing information
for our
database such as BIOS service tag from Dell, MAC address, etc.
I may be asked if I can also supply the battery pack serial number.
I've noticed that I can get part of the battery info from under
/proc/acpi/battery/BAT0/info . The 2.4.26 kernel linked on the
udpcast website doesn't include ACPI support, so I'm trying to
compile my own kernel. I've had limited success. I've done
this sort of thing before, just not for a PXE boot environment.
If you need to compile your own kernel, it's actually quite easy: just
download the .config file from
http://udpcast.linux.lu/current/udpc-config26.txt and copy it to
/usr/src/linux/.config (or whereever you compile your kernel)
The udpc-config26.txt is for 2.6 kernels, whereas udpc-config.txt is
for 2.4 kernels.
Then do "make oldconfig" to activate this config file.
Then do "make config" to add any features that may be needed in
addition to those that udpcast needs.
I need to be able to support the ipappend 1 option in
default,
This is an option that is supplied by pxelinux. No need to change
anything in the kernel options for this.
The ipappend system works as follows:
- pxelinux adds an ip= boot parameter which contains the information
it got grom PXE (which includes IP, netmask, etc.)
- the udpcast boot loader then reads it from its environment using
getenv
The kernel does not really get involved by itself, except to copy it
over from the boot command line to the application's environment (just
like it does with any other boot command line option).
and this requires the config option "IP: kernel
level autoconfiguration"
and DHCP/BOOTP under it.
This is not needed. What this option would be for is if you had a
kernel without initrd which mounted its root filesystem from NFS. In
that case, the kernel would use the contents of ip= to autoconfigure
itself and automatically mount the root fs. In order to use this, you
would also need to compile all other needed functionality (network
module, NFS filesystem support, etc) into the kernel, rather than as a
module.
In UDPcast's case, we do use an initrd, an everything happens in
application space.
I'm not sure what network file
system options must be provided.
None. The current version of udpcast does not use NFS (although an
older version did).
I don't really need
to mount anything on NCP/NFS, etc, but just a normal
PXE boot using initrd. I saw the sample config file for
floppy based boot, but it was not close enough for what
one needs in a PXE boot.
--Donald Teed
The kernel config file is the same for all scenarios: floppy, CD, PXE,
etherboot (although there is a different file for 2.4.x kernels than
for 2.6.x)
[There is a different busybox config file though for floppy and the
other boot methods: .config.mini for floppy and .config.maxi for
everything else]
Regards,
Alain
1 May
1 May
12:01 a.m.
I was doing this like the conventional way of compiling my kernel
and modules, and copying my modules to the place under /mod
within the initrd image.
I notice that in your config file there are modules.
What is the suggested way to merge the modules within
the udpcast-o-matic initrd and the modules created
by make modules?
I had thought that I would just remove everything I found
under /mod/lib/modules/2.4.26-udpcast (inside the initrd)
and copy my own /lib/modules/2.4.26-udpcast content in
there after a make modules_install . (I'm using
genromfs to create a new initrd afterward.)
Perhaps I've just added too much to the kernel. If I just
add the ethernet modules and ACPI support then
this will be closer to what you normally have.
Regards,
--Donald Teed
On Fri, 30 Apr 2004, Alain Knaff wrote:
begin Friday 30 April 2004 16:41, Donald Teed quote:
During imaging, I am going to be grabbing
information for our
database such as BIOS service tag from Dell, MAC address, etc.
I may be asked if I can also supply the battery pack serial number.
I've noticed that I can get part of the battery info from under
/proc/acpi/battery/BAT0/info . The 2.4.26 kernel linked on the
udpcast website doesn't include ACPI support, so I'm trying to
compile my own kernel. I've had limited success. I've done
this sort of thing before, just not for a PXE boot environment.
If you need to compile your own kernel, it's actually quite easy: just
download the .config file from
http://udpcast.linux.lu/current/udpc-config26.txt and copy it to
/usr/src/linux/.config (or whereever you compile your kernel)
The udpc-config26.txt is for 2.6 kernels, whereas udpc-config.txt is
for 2.4 kernels.
Then do "make oldconfig" to activate this config file.
Then do "make config" to add any features that may be needed in
addition to those that udpcast needs.
I need to be able to support the ipappend 1
option in default,
This is an option that is supplied by pxelinux. No need to change
anything in the kernel options for this.
The ipappend system works as follows:
- pxelinux adds an ip= boot parameter which contains the information
it got grom PXE (which includes IP, netmask, etc.)
- the udpcast boot loader then reads it from its environment using
getenv
The kernel does not really get involved by itself, except to copy it
over from the boot command line to the application's environment (just
like it does with any other boot command line option).
and this requires the config option "IP:
kernel level autoconfiguration"
and DHCP/BOOTP under it.
This is not needed. What this option would be for is if you had a
kernel without initrd which mounted its root filesystem from NFS. In
that case, the kernel would use the contents of ip= to autoconfigure
itself and automatically mount the root fs. In order to use this, you
would also need to compile all other needed functionality (network
module, NFS filesystem support, etc) into the kernel, rather than as a
module.
In UDPcast's case, we do use an initrd, an everything happens in
application space.
I'm not sure what network file
system options must be provided.
None. The current version of udpcast does not use NFS (although an
older version did).
I don't really need
to mount anything on NCP/NFS, etc, but just a normal
PXE boot using initrd. I saw the sample config file for
floppy based boot, but it was not close enough for what
one needs in a PXE boot.
--Donald Teed
The kernel config file is the same for all scenarios: floppy, CD, PXE,
etherboot (although there is a different file for 2.4.x kernels than
for 2.6.x)
[There is a different busybox config file though for floppy and the
other boot methods: .config.mini for floppy and .config.maxi for
everything else]
Regards,
Alain
2 May
2 May
4:27 p.m.
begin Saturday 01 May 2004 02:01, Donald Teed quote:
I was doing this like the conventional way of
compiling my kernel
and modules, and copying my modules to the place under /mod
within the initrd image.
I notice that in your config file there are modules.
What is the suggested way to merge the modules within
the udpcast-o-matic initrd and the modules created
by make modules?
I had thought that I would just remove everything I found
under /mod/lib/modules/2.4.26-udpcast (inside the initrd)
and copy my own /lib/modules/2.4.26-udpcast content in
there after a make modules_install . (I'm using
genromfs to create a new initrd afterward.)
Perhaps I've just added too much to the kernel. If I just
add the ethernet modules and ACPI support then
this will be closer to what you normally have.
Regards,
--Donald Teed
If you're compiling you're own kernel, I'd strongly suggest you use a
locally installed makeImage tool rather than cast-o-matic to create
your boot disks. Makeimage is included in the udpcast rpm, and is
documented at http://udpcast.linux.lu/mkimagedoc.html
Makeimage is also included in the udpbusybox tar file at
http://udpcast.linux.lu/current/udpbusybox-20040417.tar.gz
Regards,
Alain
6634
days inactive
6636
days old
3 comments
2 participants
participants (2)
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Alain Knaff -
Donald Teed