[Etherboot-developers] DHCP option 175

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

I have just committed some very small (8 lines total) changes to
etherboot.h, nic.h, config.c, main.c.  Etherboot will now send the NIC
driver name (e.g. "RTL8139") as vendor option 175 in the DHCPREQUEST
packet.

The idea behind this is that the DHCP server can use the contents of this
option field to determine the value of the "filename" in the DHCPACK.  In
this way, Etherboot can be directed to automatically download an
appropriate kernel+initrd image.  The dhcpd.conf file could contain, for
example:

option etherboot-driver code 175 = string;

if option etherboot-driver = "Prism2_PCI" {
  filename "boot-prism2_pci.nbi";
} elsif option etherboot-driver = "RLT8139" {
  filename "boot-8139too.nbi";
} elsif ... {
  ...
} else {
  filename = concat ( "boot-", option etherboot-driver, ".nbi" );
}

This is part of my efforts to automate some (all!) of the work in building
initrds - watch for the addition of mkinitrd-net to contrib sometime soon.

I have updated vendortags.{sgml,html,txt} in doc/ to cover the new option.

Enjoy!  If my changes break anything, please let me know asap.

Michael