[Etherboot-developers] Re: Etherboot and FreeBSD

[Michael S. <ms...@wg...>]

Ken Yap wrote:
> 
> |FreeBSD has a rather nasty design flaw that made me dig into
> |Etherboot.  I tried to disturb as little as possible in the
> |patch I submitted (here on this site)
> |
> |BTW - This is the first time I have submitted a patch to a
> |sourceforge run project.  I hope this was the correct way to
> |do so.
> 
> Yes, that's fine, except there are special circumstances for FreeBSD.
> 
> |If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me at
> |the above address and/or mic...@si...
> 
> Could you please resubmit to eth...@li....
> Reason is the main FreeBSD maintainer is on that list. I don't have
> FreeBSD myself and can't verify your patch. He can tell you if your
> concerns are valid and if you have fixed it the right way.

I have tried to submit it on the site and even though I include it
in the HTTP post, it does not show up on the web site.  Something may
be wrong (or maybe it does not like what I sent?)

Anyway, the patch is attached here (and this is going to the
etherboot-developers list.

The problem (or not so much problem but design quirk) with FreeBSD
is that it needs the debugging symbols (if you strip the kernel it
will not work) to be loaded when the kernel is loaded.  Plus, these
symbols must be set up in a special way and pointed to via a metadata
structure that is pointed to by the bootinfo structure that is passed
as part of the boot process.

I have made changes to the osloader.c code to support this behavior.
This lets FreeBSD be loaded via Etherboot for a diskless system
(such as via DHCPD/BOOTP setups) and work.  This affects only the Elf
(FreeBSD 3.x/4.x) versions due to the way symbols are handled.

All of the changes are within the #ifdef IMAGE_FREEBSD sections
and have been verified in our lab to not interfere with other booting
processes (and other builds that are not FREEBSD based)

-- 
Michael Sinz ---- Worldgate Communications ---- ms...@wg...
A master's secrets are only as good as
	the master's ability to explain them to others.