Re: [Etherboot-developers] Etherboot codebase - alternate use

[<ke...@us...>]

>How difficult would it be to hack memtest86 to use the etherboot codebase to
>generate UDP packets to send to a syslog server?  The syslog service can be
>setup to log to a different file based on IP address.  This would allow
>testing of a large array of PCs, and logging of the test results for
>record-keeping purposes.
>
>The syslog facility might also be of use to debug driver issues - ones that
>did not prevent sending of UDP packets.

It would probably be easier to make memtest86 an optional piece of code
that can be compiled in for Etherboot. Reason is because of the NIC
driver and support routines. If you put those in memtest86, they have to
be maintained and may diverge. Memtest86 is I think the simpler codebase
and easier to absorb. I don't know how this will play with memtest86's
author or licensing (I think it's GPL). Embrace and extend? Another
compelling use for Etherboot? :-)

>The NIC.C file in the current tree seems a prime candidate for further
>splitting to multiple files based on protocol (i.e., one for DHCP, one for
>TFTP, one for UDP, etc.), this also affects the Makefiles, but the advantage
>would be ease of (ab)use to implement etherboot routines for other purposes,
>such as the memtest86 hack.

Have you had a look at 5.1? A lot has been cleaned up. Also 5.1 runs
relocated from the top of memory and I'm guessing that it will be easy
to exclude that area from testing.