OpenSolaris

http://napobo3.blogspot.com/2006/03/solarisppc-on-my-desktop.html

Best wishes to the PowerPC community!
-- Leon

On 3/13/06, Noah Yan < noah dot yan at gmail dot com> wrote:
> Hi, All,
>
> It has been so quiet (which is wired) in recent several weeks here. Hopefully my update may stir something up.
>
> The inetboot, which allow a diskless system to boot over NFS root is now functional. It can mount the root fs from the NFS server, load an elf file(kernel), exitto it and let it go. I upload some camer shot (seems the PowerMac G4 does not have serial port) in http://polaris.blastwave.org/attachment/wiki/YanyhDiary/1.GIF,
> http://polaris.blastwave.org/attachment/wiki/YanyhDiary/2.GIF
>
> In brief, the inetboot bootstrap process is as follow:
> 1. openfirmware load the inetboot from tftp server and give control to inetboot
> 2. inetboot initialize memory list
> 3. sends rarp request to get the host ip
> 4. sends whoami and getfile bootparamd rpc requests to get info for nfs server and remote root
> 5. nfs-mount root fs
> 6. read unix over nfs and transfer control to it
>
> There is no joke at all for even this small task and there are so many details that requires lots of doc/code reading and debuging (I even begin to lean Forth now :o). My informal diary records those major changes which could help if anybody is interested in this.
>
> This time, I do need to stop, synchronize and clean my code with the main trunk. So give me some time to check in my code :)
>
> Noah
> This message posted from opensolaris.org
> _______________________________________________
> powerpc-discuss mailing list
> powerpc-discuss at opensolaris dot org
>

On Mon, Mar 13, 2006 at 01:56:27PM -0800, Noah Yan wrote:
> Hi, All,
>
> It has been so quiet (which is wired) in recent several weeks here. Hopefully my update may stir something up.
>
> The inetboot, which allow a diskless system to boot over NFS root is now functional. It can mount the root fs from the NFS server, load an elf file(kernel), exitto it and let it go. I upload some camer shot (seems the PowerMac G4 does not have serial port) in http://polaris.blastwave.org/attachment/wiki/YanyhDiary/1.GIF,
> http://polaris.blastwave.org/attachment/wiki/YanyhDiary/2.GIF

Hi Noah, ...

Next week i aim on working on duplicating what you did on the pegasos/ODW
machines. I can still not build opensolaris myself though.

> In brief, the inetboot bootstrap process is as follow:
> 1. openfirmware load the inetboot from tftp server and give control to inetboot

is a pre-compiled inetboot available somewhere ? And did you have to make
special (mac-obp specific ?) modifications of it ?

> 2. inetboot initialize memory list
> 3. sends rarp request to get the host ip


would this work with a bootp/dhcp system instead too ?

> 4. sends whoami and getfile bootparamd rpc requests to get info for nfs server and remote root

> 5. nfs-mount root fs

mmm, this supposes there is an root filesystem available too, right ?

> 6. read unix over nfs and transfer control to it
>
>
There is no joke at all for even this small task and there are so many
details that requires lots of doc/code reading and debuging (I even
begin to lean Forth now :o). My informal diary records those major
changes which could help if anybody is interested in this.
>
>
This time, I do need to stop, synchronize and clean my code with the
main trunk. So give me some time to check in my code :)

How did you progress on this this week ?

Friendly,

Sven Luther

On Sat, Mar 18, 2006 at 11:52:12AM -0600, Noah yan wrote:
> On 3/18/06, Sven Luther <sl@bplan-gmbh.de> wrote:
> >
> > On Mon, Mar 13, 2006 at 01:56:27PM -0800, Noah Yan wrote:
> > > Hi, All,
> > >
> > > It has been so quiet (which is wired) in recent several weeks here.
> > Hopefully my update may stir something up.
> > >
> > > The inetboot, which allow a diskless system to boot over NFS root is now
> > functional. It can mount the root fs from the NFS server, load an elf
> > file(kernel), exitto it and let it go. I upload some camer shot (seems the
> > PowerMac G4 does not have serial port) in
> > http://polaris.blastwave.org/attachment/wiki/YanyhDiary/1.GIF,
> > > http://polaris.blastwave.org/attachment/wiki/YanyhDiary/2.GIF
> >
> > Hi Noah, ...
> >
> > Next week i aim on working on duplicating what you did on the pegasos/ODW
> > machines. I can still not build opensolaris myself though.
> >
> > > In brief, the inetboot bootstrap process is as follow:
> > > 1. openfirmware load the inetboot from tftp server and give control to
> > inetboot
> >
> > is a pre-compiled inetboot available somewhere ? And did you have to make
> > special (mac-obp specific ?) modifications of it ?
>
>
> I put one on
> http://polaris.blastwave.org/attachment/wiki/YanyhDiary/inetboot.elf
> let me know your results (take some short :)).  Thanks

Ok, thanks.

>  no special modification for mac-obp, since most of the code are borrowed or
> started from the cooresponding SPARC vesion. but there may be some hidden
> ones that we donot know.

Well, as i will work on the pegasos OF/obp, i probably will discover any such
rather quickly.

> > 2. inetboot initialize memory list
> > > 3. sends rarp request to get the host ip
> >
> > would this work with a bootp/dhcp system instead too ?
>
>
> I did not test dhcp.  but I think not, it uses something called "dhcp cache
> (?)" in the firmware in the original sparc code.

I suppose it will need to install a rarp server then, or try the dhcp code.

The pegasos OF can get an ip address by dhcp, not sure if this one can be
forwarded to the booted system or not. Maybe it is part of the
chosen/bootpath.

> > 4. sends whoami and getfile bootparamd rpc requests to get info for nfs
> > server and remote root
> > > 5. nfs-mount root fs
> >
> > mmm, this supposes there is an root filesystem available too, right ?
>
>
> yes. check the my diary for how to start nfsd, rarpd and bootparamd daemons.

Ok. I was more worried with the actual content of the nfs root, since i don't
have a setup able to build opensolaris. Maybe you (or someone else) could make
a minimal root filesystem available too ?

> > 6. read unix over nfs and transfer control to it
> > >
> > > There is no joke at all for even this small task and there are so many
> > details that requires lots of doc/code reading and debuging (I even begin to
> > lean Forth now :o). My informal diary records those major changes which
> > could help if anybody is interested in this.
> > >
> > > This time, I do need to stop, synchronize and clean my code with the
> > main trunk. So give me some time to check in my code :)
> >
> > How did you progress on this this week ?
>
>
> not very much. But I will try to make this happen around next week or two,
> both the source and simple docs.

Cool.

Friendly,

Sven Luther

On Sat, Mar 18, 2006 at 01:30:38PM -0600, Noah yan wrote:
> Hi Sven,
>
> I forget to mention this. Currently, the root file system  is just an
> exported directory, nothing in it. You can put an ELF binary (as kernel)
> that can bootstrap itself, such as grub, or linux kernel, or even the
> inetboot.elf itself. When the inetboot.elf is loaded and runs, it will
> prompt to ask for the kernel (default is ppc/unix),  just input the name of
> the file that is put in the nfs root (be sure to start with "/"). and the
> inetboot will load it and transfer control to it.

Ah, nice.

I guess the real test will be when we will be able to do the same, but instead
of using inetboot and rarp/bootp/dhcp/nfs, we will be able to use the client
read interface to access the filesystem.

Do you know what inetboot.elf uses ? Does it parse the chosen/bootpath node,
and uses that. It would be interesting then to have it be able to parse either
the static stuff :

boot eth:<server-ip>,<file>,<own-ip>,<gateway-ip>,<netmas k>

or the rarp/bootp/dhcp version of this one.

Friendly,

Sven Luther