[Etherboot-users] General Questions about Ethernet Boot Roms

[James S. <js...@cp...>]

Hello, please note that I am not using any images made by etherboot or 
rom-o-matic.  I am, however, using a boot rom from Intel, and i have no 
practical experience with these things.  Anyway, here we go:

Today my professor at college gave to me a bundle of EISA Intel 
Pro/10mbit Ethernet Cards, as he became aware of my interest in diskless 
machines and centralized operating system images. (Intel FA82595TX 
chip). On the card is a 32 pin socket containing a ROM with an Intel 
sticker that has "Intel (C) 1994 352226-001" on it.  I assume this is 
the boot rom.

When i got home from school, I plugged the NIC into an ATX motherboard 
with an AWARD 686 PCI PNP bios. The motherboard also contains slots for 
EISA.  Looking through the BIOS config, I did not notice any option for 
"Boot from network card."  I decided to do a cold boot, hoping that the 
ROM would be detected, and that the bootsrap would attempt to boot from 
here.  When loading the machine, I did not see any output messages out 
of the ordinary pertaining to the network card or its attempts to boot 
using the ROM.  All i ever received was an "invalid boot disk, press 
enter to continue."

I accepted this, as the network card was not connected to any other 
network interface, such as one with BOOTP or TFTP bound to it.  However, 
just to see if anything was going out the wire when the machine booted, 
i ran a protocol analyzer.

The only data going out the wire was NOT coming from the Intel Pro/10 - 
it was coming from the other computer and included broadcast ARP and IP 
traffic once the link came up.  The Intel Pro/10 did not even respond to 
the broadcast arp.  Keep in mind, the computer running the protocol 
analyzer did not have a boot rom in it (i dont think this matters).

Anyway, my questions are as follows:

How does a computer that has a BIOS without a "boot from network" option 
know how to boot from the network?  The boot rom on the Intel Pro/10 is 
from 1994, and I dont recall seeing "boot from network" in any 586 or 
lower BIOS i have ever worked with.  Did these older BIOSES require a 
boot floppy to pass on booting to the old-style boot rom?

If using a boot floppy to pass off the boot sequence is not the issue, 
or if my BIOS doesnt require 'boot from network' option in order to pass 
booting to the boot rom, then why is it that the protocol analyzer 
showed no traffic originating from the Intel Pro/10?  Should there have 
not been at least a broadcast ARP or BOOTP messages originating from it?

Or, should I have installed a BOOTP server first? Would the BOOTP server 
initiate a proper conversation with the Intel Pro/10 card, or is it up 
to the boot rom enabled card to initiate a conversation with the 
server?  I have not read the RFC on BOOTP yet, sorry about that one.

Anyway, if there is anyone with general information that can help me 
clarify things here, please let me know.

Thanks!