Re: [Etherboot-discuss] Issue using UNDI driver in MS-DOS image booted w/ gPXE+PXELINUX

[Geert S. <sta...@st...>]

Op 15-05-2008 om 08:32 schreef Sarah Nordstrom:
> From: Geert Stappers
> Sent: Thursday, May 15, 2008 05:15
> > Sarah Nordstrom:
> > > 3. PXELINUX uses MEMDISK (with the keeppxe option) to load an MS-DOS
> > >    floppy image via TFTP.
> > > 4. MS-DOS floppy image boots, loading the Intel UNDI network driver
> > >    to access the network.
> > >
> > > This all works fine on hardware PXE stacks, but when using gPXE the
> > > Intel UNDI driver never loads.  I get the same initialization message
> > > from it ("Intel Universal NDIS Driver,  PXE-2.0 (build 083)"), but it
> > > doesn't actually load.
> > 
> > The odd thing to me is 'Universal' not matching 'build 083',
> > I mean a true Universal driver should find also other drivers then a
> > particular version number.
> > 
> > 
> > Geert Stappers
>
> I don't understand, 'build 083' is the version number of the UNDI
> driver.  It *is* a universal driver, in that it's worked on every
> hardware PXE stack I've tried to use it with.

I suspect that the (not so) universal driver only finds Intel PXE stacks.
It should find also the gPXE PXE stack.


> I'm not quite sure what you're asking me to do?


> > Is it possible to replace the NDIS Driver with a truely universal one?
> > 
> > Or do you have other options to make the Intel UNDI network driver to see
> > driver stuff from gPXE or pxelinux.0?
> > 


The thing I'm trying to accomplise
is to break the loop that got you catched.


A NDIS driver is a convertor between the network card send/recieve
routines and MS-DOS send/recieve routines.

That convertor works in your setup for Intel PXE stacks
and not yet for the gPXE stack.


In my previous post I was hinting to change the NDIS driver,
so it would match gPXE.

I say hinting, because I can only give you hints about this topic.
("NDIS" is for the MS-DOS days and I went the Linux way)



In this posting another hint:

That is another thing I lack (indepth) knowledge about: UNDI

What I understood from UNDI is that it also some convertor for network
card software routine to another set of software routines.


If the (not so) Universal NDIS driver is looking for a UNDI layer,
you might provide the UNDI layer from gPXE.
At http://www.etherboot.org/wiki/pxechaining is told how to provide UNDI.
Read "legacy PXE implementation" as "booted from the gPXE CDROM"[0]


I hope that this did help

Cheers
Geert Stappers

[0] Which shouldn't contain gpxe.bus-id