Re: [Etherboot-users] UNDIS3C driver

[Michael B. <mb...@fe...>]

On Thu, 22 Sep 2005, Carl Karsten wrote:
> Well, the "OS" doesn't have any drivers, but the initrd does.  Those 2
> things are used to bring up an NFS connection to the rest of the system
> (like the modules dir.)  Currently you have to build a "custom" initrd
> based on what NIC's you want to support.  my idea is use the pxe stack
> untill you can get the NFS mount, then y ou have access to the full
> array of drivers and can figure out what is best.

That actually sounds like a fairly good idea.  You'd have an initrd 
containing an UNDI net driver, providing an interface "pxe0" (avoiding 
"eth0" to eliminate confusion), which would work (albeit slowly) to give 
you access to the normal module loading mechanisms.

To switch drivers, you'd probably have to copy the driver module to a
local tmpfs filesystem, store the interface configuration, ifconfig down
and rmmod the UNDI driver, insmod the new driver module and ifconfig eth0
with the stored interface configuration, then restart dhcpd.  (You can't
rely on dhcp to obtain the initial address for eth0, because the dhcpd
program itself would be inaccessible until eth0 was up).

I don't have the free time to do it myself, but I'd be interested to see 
the results if anyone else does.  The Etherboot UNDI driver and the 
Linux ndiswrapper would be good places to start investigating.

If anyone is really desperate for this functionality, feel free to make me 
an offer to get it written.

Michael