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<p class="MsoNormal"><font face="Arial" color="navy" size="2"><span style="font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy">As far as booting ESXi directly on EFI
goes, we’re working on it, but it is not a feature generally available in any
current release. For now, most EFI machines have some kind of compatibility
mode that allows them to act like BIOS machines, and you can use that (in
combination with syslinux/pxelinux/grub/whatever) to boot multiboot operating
systems.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font face="Arial" color="navy" size="2"><span style="font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy"><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font face="Arial" color="navy" size="2"><span style="font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy">There are a number of technical problems
with the multiboot specification itself that make it difficult or impossible to
use directly on EFI: for example, the OS will be unable to find the ACPI tables,
and therefore won’t know how to set up device interrupts, leading to
catastrophic failure. It looks like GRUB 2 supports something they’re calling “multiboot
2,” which I assume overcomes those technical limitations. It would require OS
changes, though, and I haven’t really been keeping up to date on that front.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font face="Arial" color="navy" size="2"><span style="font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy"><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font face="Arial" color="navy" size="2"><span style="font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy">Geoff<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font face="Arial" color="navy" size="2"><span style="font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy"><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font face="Arial" color="navy" size="2"><span style="font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy"><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><b><font face="Tahoma" size="2"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Tahoma;font-weight:bold">From:</span></font></b><font face="Tahoma" size="2"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Tahoma"> Jarrod Johnson
[mailto:jarrod.b.johnson@gmail.com] <br>
<b><span style="font-weight:bold">Sent:</span></b> Wednesday, October 06, 2010
6:01 AM<br>
<b><span style="font-weight:bold">To:</span></b> Geoff Lywood<br>
<b><span style="font-weight:bold">Cc:</span></b> oremanj@gmail.com;
gpxe-devel-bounces@etherboot.org; gpxe-devel@etherboot.org<br>
<b><span style="font-weight:bold">Subject:</span></b> Re: [gPXE-devel]
snponly.efi functionality</span></font><o:p></o:p></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span style="font-size:
12.0pt"><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span style="font-size:
12.0pt">Hmm, any takers for a mkefi to wrap linux images? I'm not smart
enough myself...<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span style="font-size:
12.0pt"><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
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<p style="margin-bottom:12.0pt" class="MsoNormal"><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Also, how about booting
esxi (or any multiboot image for that matter) via EFI?<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span style="font-size:
12.0pt">On Tue, Oct 5, 2010 at 6:14 PM, Geoff Lywood <<a href="mailto:glywood@vmware.com">glywood@vmware.com</a>> wrote:<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
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<p style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto" class="MsoNormal"><font face="Arial" color="navy" size="2"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;
color:navy">snponly.efi doesn’t really add anything currently. Some time ago, I
sent around a patch that would allow other EFI applications to use gPXE’s
network stack and all of the protocols it supports. However, the patch was
never integrated, and the elilo side of the code was never written.</span></font><o:p></o:p></p>
<p style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto" class="MsoNormal"><font face="Arial" color="navy" size="2"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;
color:navy"> </span></font><o:p></o:p></p>
<p style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto" class="MsoNormal"><font face="Arial" color="navy" size="2"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;
color:navy">Your idea of bundling the kernel/initrd/elilo into a single EFI app
sounds neat. It’s basically an mknbi command for EFI. I don’t believe that
anyone has actually implemented something like this, though. </span></font><o:p></o:p></p>
<p style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto" class="MsoNormal"><font face="Arial" color="navy" size="2"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;
color:navy"> </span></font><o:p></o:p></p>
<p style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto" class="MsoNormal"><font face="Arial" color="navy" size="2"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;
color:navy">Geoff</span></font><o:p></o:p></p>
<p style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto" class="MsoNormal"><font face="Arial" color="navy" size="2"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;
color:navy"> </span></font><o:p></o:p></p>
<p style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto" class="MsoNormal"><font face="Arial" color="navy" size="2"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;
color:navy"> </span></font><o:p></o:p></p>
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<p style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto" class="MsoNormal"><b><font face="Tahoma" size="2"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Tahoma;font-weight:
bold">From:</span></font></b><font face="Tahoma" size="2"><span style="font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Tahoma"> <a target="_blank" href="mailto:gpxe-devel-bounces@etherboot.org">gpxe-devel-bounces@etherboot.org</a> [mailto:<a target="_blank" href="mailto:gpxe-devel-bounces@etherboot.org">gpxe-devel-bounces@etherboot.org</a>]
<b><span style="font-weight:bold">On Behalf Of </span></b>Jarrod Johnson<br>
<b><span style="font-weight:bold">Sent:</span></b> Tuesday, October 05, 2010
12:54 PM<br>
<b><span style="font-weight:bold">To:</span></b> <a target="_blank" href="mailto:oremanj@gmail.com">oremanj@gmail.com</a><br>
<b><span style="font-weight:bold">Cc:</span></b> <a target="_blank" href="mailto:gpxe-devel-bounces@etherboot.org">gpxe-devel-bounces@etherboot.org</a>;
<a target="_blank" href="mailto:gpxe-devel@etherboot.org">gpxe-devel@etherboot.org</a><br>
<b><span style="font-weight:bold">Subject:</span></b> Re: [gPXE-devel]
snponly.efi functionality</span></font><o:p></o:p></p>
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<p style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto" class="MsoNormal"><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span style="font-size:12.0pt"> <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;margin-bottom:12.0pt" class="MsoNormal"><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Would snponly.efi
add anything versus booting elilo directly? e.g., even if I use
snponly.efi, won't elilo tftp down the kernel/initrd, or is there some way to
bundle a kernel/initrd/elilo into a single efi, or have elilo use enhanced
protocol while running under gPXE a la pxelinux?<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
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<p style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto" class="MsoNormal"><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">On Tue, Oct 5,
2010 at 3:46 PM, <<a target="_blank" href="mailto:oremanj@gmail.com">oremanj@gmail.com</a>>
wrote:<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;margin-bottom:12.0pt" class="MsoNormal"><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">No, but you can
use ELILO as an intermediary.<br>
<br>
Josh<br>
Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T<br>
<br>
-----Original Message-----<br>
From: Jarrod Johnson <<a target="_blank" href="mailto:jarrod.b.johnson%2Bgpxe@gmail.com">jarrod.b.johnson+gpxe@gmail.com</a>><br>
Sender: <a target="_blank" href="mailto:gpxe-devel-bounces@etherboot.org">gpxe-devel-bounces@etherboot.org</a><br>
Date: Tue, 5 Oct 2010 15:37:40<br>
To: <<a target="_blank" href="mailto:gpxe-devel@etherboot.org">gpxe-devel@etherboot.org</a>><br>
Subject: [gPXE-devel] snponly.efi functionality<br>
<br>
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<p style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto" class="MsoNormal"><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span style="font-size:12.0pt"> <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
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