...bootp... (was Re: Debian Boot Floppies CVS: boot-floppies marcel)

[Eric Delaunay <delaunay@lix.polytechnique.fr>]

Marcel Harkema wrote:
> Op maandag 11 oktober 1999 rond 23:01 schreef Eric:
> > How does it work ?  Why did you need to rewrite this piece of code ?
> > Is it because drivers.tgz too big to fit on one floppy ?
> > Btw, a quick look in the code see you have disabled the alternate kernel
> > feature I wrote before slink release: if you want to install from NFS with more
> > than one kernel/drivers provided Debian[1] you need to give different names to
> > each version of drivers archives (drivers-x.y.z.tgz for example).
> > Do you need help to recode it, or do you want me to fix it ?
> > 
> > Regards.
> > 
> > [1] eg. 2.0.36 + 2.2.12 for sparc, tecra/non tecra for i386, ...  yes it was
> >     for slink but I propose we don't remove this possibility in potato.
> 
>   I was planning on re-adding support in 2.2.1, but since you're working on
>   boot-floppies as welll currently I have re-added it for 2.2.0.  Can you
>   check it?  I haven't time to do so myself, I need some sleep now.  Worked
>   too many hours...

Yes, mee too sometimes ;)

I got your latest cvs upload but don't have time to test it this night.  Maybe
tomorrow...  btw, it looks good :)

>   Btw, can you explain you bootp plans?  I don't quite understand them...  I
>   am planning to add dhcp support next week btw, because I need that feature
>   at work.

My experience with bootp in the Linux world is really new: no more than 1 day ;)
I tried to setup a bootp server yesterday.
It seems you can fill up a structure for each workstation you want to boot from
on the bootp server side to distribute many informations like:
- boot file
- root dir
- IP addr
- HW addr
- domain name
- dns IP addresses
- gateway IP addr
...

You write all these informations in the /etc/bootptab file like that:

mingus:\
    :ha=0800201c5090:\
    :sm=255.255.255.0:\
    :sa=192.168.1.1:\
    :td=/tftpboot:hd=/:bf=linux-2.2.12.aout:\
    :rp=/tftpboot/debian-sparc-root:\
    :dn=pontchartrain.fr:hn:

On sparc not all fields are useful: rarp is always used by the PROM to download
kernel via tftp so, since the kernel supports both rarp & bootp, if you want to
use bootp for further configuration, you need to force the kernel to using it
by passing "ip=::::::bootp" on its command line.

Now, what I would want to do is to build a BOOTP request then extract all
useful fields for Debian installer:
- host name
- domain name
- ip addr
- dns addr
- gateway addr

Just missing is the broadcast address field.
Guessing from subnet mask would allow to skip all configuration steps and
display the "Confirmation" dialog box immediately.  If the user does not
validate it, restart to the first step of configuring the network.

If you have some code already written for this autoconfiguration I could try to
implement bootp in it.  Otherwise I will write it on my own, at least to do
some experiments.

Regards.

-- 
 Eric Delaunay                 | "La guerre justifie l'existence des militaires.
 delaunay@lix.polytechnique.fr | En les supprimant." Henri Jeanson (1900-1970)