Re: [Etherboot-developers] changes checked into CVS

[Peter L. <P.L...@sy...>]

> But you'd have to do the same thing for other binary strucutres in
> dhcpd.conf. Can't you use colon notation?

I strongly feel that processing human readable strings is the server's
job. The ONLY exception I'd make to this is the VCI, because it's the
major thing used for the switches in dhcpd.conf, and probably should be
human readable.

Doing things right for Etherboot shouldn't be limited by ISC dhcpd's
config language - and colon separated hex seems a reasonable compromise
at this stage. That some existing Etherboot options are colon separated
strings doesn't mean that this is good idea. ISC dhcpd v3 improved
matters a great deal, though there's much room for improvement.

I currently have to say...

option Etherboot-defaults "timeout=2:default=192";
option Etherboot-menu01 "Netboot(nodes456 2.2.19):::sychron/nodes456/vml
inuz-2-2-19.nbi::0i0p:";

...I'd prefer to say...

option space vendor-specific.Etherboot.menu
  option timeout 2 ;
  option default 1 ;
  option boot(1).name "Netboot(nodes456 2.2.19)" ;
  option boot(1).image "sychron/nodes456/vmlinuz-2-2-19.nbi"
  option boot(2).name "Netboot(nodes456 2.4.9)" ;
  option boot(2).image "sychron/nodes456/vmlinuz-2-4-9.nbi"

...this is easier to read in the dhcpd.conf, easier for Etherboot to
parse and much less error prone.

ISC dhcpd dot notation for encapsulated types makes colon-separated
strings redundant, though it has room for improvment. I'd like a syntax
above which allows multiple instances of encapsulated options; it would
also be nice to be able to add enumerated types so that one can add nic
types by name. Mind you, I really want to be able to express this as
perl...