[gPXE] nvo questions/comments

[Stefan Hajnoczi]

On Thu, Jun 17, 2010 at 9:03 PM, Glenn Brown <gbrown at alumni.caltech.edu> wrote:
> Production considerations
> =========================
>
> We'd like to ship a single gPXE ROM that is usable by as many of our
> customers as possible.  The default autoboot behaviour satisfies most,
> but some are asking pure nvo configuration without DHCP.  I can roll a
> custom ROM with a gPXE boot script for them, but this seems a waste when
> all they want to do is 'sanboot ${net0.nvo/root-path}' with the network
> interface configured via nvo.  The sanboot support is already in the
> default ROM, and it's a shame if they have to build and field-upgrade
> the ROM in each NIC just for a one-line boot script.
>
> So, is there a way to do this without building a custom ROM?
> If not, I'm thinking of adding a 'boot-script' nvo setting that is used
> if set.  Is there a better way?

I think a 'boot-script' nvo setting makes sense.  We're seeing other
environments where a script may be passed to override autoboot:

1. gpxe.lkrn images which are booted via GRUB/EXTLINUX/lilo.  There is
interest in passing a gPXE script as the "initramfs" to gpxe.lkrn.
2. gPXE under QEMU/KVM where a script can be passed via the QEMU
fw_cfg file interface.  I tried this out as a proof-of-concept but
there wasn't much interest at the time.

These preloaded scripts are similar to embedded images.

Anyway, I'm late to the show and thanks for the patches you've already
posted :).

Stefan