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--- soc:2010:andreif:journal:week12 [2010/08/09 14:33]
andreif created
+++ soc:2010:andreif:journal:week12 [2010/08/13 06:54] (current)
andreif
@@ Line 9: / Line 9: @@
 Meanwhile, I got a _new_ laptop these days and I was wondering if Xen would work on it. While configuring stuff on the PC this question kept bugging me. So, I went on and installed stuff on the new laptop, recompiled Xen, recompiled a dom0 kernel, initrd, modified GRUB and booted it.
-It reached the login screen, keyboard works (yay for improvements) but I didn't test Xen specific commands. I was now curious if gPXE would work with the r8169 NIC the new laptop has. Luckily it did, and I was able to fetch some dummy images. Eventually, I fetched the xen hypervisor along with a dom0 linux image. The initrd had a size of 66M and after all the installing and apt-getting and whatnot I was tired of waiting.
+It reached the login screen, keyboard works (yay for improvements) but I didn't test Xen specific commands. I was now curious if gPXE would work with the r8169 NIC the new laptop has. Back to the booting stick, now equipped with and r8169 driver. Along came three words everybody wants to see: "Missing operating system".
+I figured this must be some SYSLINUX bug, because I tested the stick on the old laptop and it ran fine. Looking at the syslinux version I used to create the stick, it was 3.63. I downloaded the latest 4.02 SYSLINUX, compiled it, and used it to create a new booting stick. "Press CTRL+B to load gPXE...". Yay :)
+So it worked and I was able to fetch some dummy images. Eventually, I fetched the Xen hypervisor along with a dom0 linux image. The initrd had a size of 66M and after all the installing and apt-getting and whatnot I was tired of waiting.
 <code C>
@@ Line 16: / Line 20: @@
 imgload xen-4.0.1
 imgload vmlinuz
-imgexec vmlinuz
+imgexec xen-4.0.1
 </code>
-Amazingly enough, the hypervisor booted and even fetched the vmlinuz image (I am not sure how this happened since I didn't give any specific commands for this), and the Linux kernel froze because it didn't know how to fetch the root (because I didn't pass it any root= argument like in GRUB). At this point, I was happy with today's progress, hopefully everything will fully work soon.
+Amazingly enough, the hypervisor booted and even recognized the vmlinuz image (I am not sure how this happened since I didn't give any specific commands for this), and the Linux kernel froze because it didn't know how to access the root partition (because I didn't pass it any root= argument like in GRUB). At this point, I was happy with today's progress, and I was glad to see that the hypervisor worked.
+==== Day 2 [ Tue 10 Aug 2010 ] ====
+Resumed the tests today. First thing I did was pass a "root=/dev/sda1" argument to the vmlinuz module, since apparently that was the problem yesterday. Also, I fetched the initrd. To my surprise, the hypervisor now reported that it could not find any dom0 kernels. I had a hunch this was related to the order I fetched the images so I tried fetching the initrd before the vmlinuz module. This worked and the kernel booted.
+However, things can't be left in this state. I will have to modify the multiboot code so the modules are placed in proper order.
+Non working order:
+<code>
+imgfetch vmlinuz
+imgfetch initrd
+MULTIBOOT 0x17514 module 0 is [b1f80000,bb8b1400)
+MULTIBOOT 0x17514 module 1 is [bf9b5000,bfda2920)
+</code>
+Working order:
+<code>
+imgfetch initrd
+imgfetch vmlinuz
+MULTIBOOT 0x17514 module 0 is [b1f80000,b236d920)
+MULTIBOOT 0x17514 module 1 is [b236e000,bbc9f400)
+</code>
+==== Day 3 [ Wed 11 Aug 2010 ] ====
+Git commit: [[http://git.etherboot.org/?p=people/andreif/gpxe.git;a=commit;h=5a082f918accb57c8ba28cf1802705b42c96784c|5a082f918accb57c8ba28cf1802705b42c96784c]]
+Today I implemented the --nodecode option that allows an user to fetch an image without it being decoded. Also, I tried fixing the image order issue but it doesn't work yet. I have to find out exactly how gPXE is laid out in memory before I can properly solve this issue.
+==== ^D ====
+Unfortunately, due to time-constraints related to my departure, I am postponing the work on the multiboot patches until after GSoC.
+=== Previously... ===
+To sum up my work this summer:
+  * pcnet32 driver  **[[http://git.etherboot.org/?p=gpxe.git;a=commit;h=eff94214157cc7ffa6b8f91e9c4be19e0948a716|link]]**
+  * forcedeth driver  **[[http://git.etherboot.org/?p=gpxe.git;a=commit;h=b8d214cfb66dcb02e2c56fcf1242edc54a81cc50|link]]**
+  * small patch related to MAC address handling, code ported from Linux **[[http://git.etherboot.org/?p=gpxe.git;a=commit;h=b97c7df02afea7e8a311be9767c839a654717827|link]]**
+  * small patch for r8169 driver **[[http://git.etherboot.org/?p=gpxe.git;a=commit;h=f73ffe84e8d44ff9261a461d56916ac94ec01e30|link]]**
+  * improve multiboot code so that Xen, VMware ESXi and Solaris work properly. This is still a work in progress. In the **[[http://git.etherboot.org/?p=people/andreif/gpxe.git;a=commit;h=5a082f918accb57c8ba28cf1802705b42c96784c|current state]]**, gPXE + Xen hypervisor + dom0 kernel + initrd work with the small catch that the initrd has to be fetched first.
+=== And the Oscar goes to... ===
+  * //Google//, for making this possible
+  * //The gPXE team//, for accepting me as their student this summer
+  * //stefanha//, for providing invaluable help on a day-to-day basis and taking his time to explain things thoroughly
+  * //mdc//,//meteger//, for helping me with debugging the drivers and moral support
+  * //oremanj//, for insight into the decoding infrastructure
+  * //GuoFuTseng//, for testing my forcedeth driver
+  * //peper//, for his role in me learning how to properly format a patch :)
+If I have forgotten anybody, I apologize, but know that your help was used in making the above patches possible.
+=== Finale ===
+Great summer, awesome project, I hope to able to contribute to it further. GG!

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