Messages in this thread | | | Date | Sat, 8 Jan 2000 10:46:48 -0800 | From | Dirk Harms-Merbitz <> | Subject | Re: Announce: initrd-tftp 0.1 |
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We do that here with initrd. EPROM grabs kernel+ramdisk. Machines then have / on the ramdisk. /usr is via NFS if needed.
Dirk
On Sat, Jan 08, 2000 at 05:32:28PM +0000, Alex Holden wrote: > On Sat, 8 Jan 2000 almesber@lrc.di.epfl.ch wrote: > > Alex Holden wrote: > > > The initial RAM disk tftp support is effectively a complete kernel-space > > > TFTP client implementation, configured to load the initial RAM disk with a > > > file (currently specified at compile time) obtained from a TFTP server. > > If all you want is another RAM disk, you could just put all the tools > > you need to download it on an initrd, then construct the RAM disk, and > > then mount that one as root. Unless you're really badly limited for > > space, this (i.e. a stripped-down user space tftp) should be a lot more > > convenient to maintain. > > Maybe I explained badly what it does and what it's for. It's not for > systems which can load a RAM disk or initrd normally. It's for systems > which don't have the ability to load a ramdisk from a disk (because there > isn't one), but do have the ability to load and execute a block of code > (the kernel) from the network. This patch allows the kernel, once it's > determined it's IP address, to load a file (optionally gzipped) from a > tftp server and put it into /dev/ram0. You can then use it as an initrd > if you want, or if you want to use it as your root filesystem just use > root=/dev/ram on the command line (which is what I'm doing). It's intended > to be used as a simpler, more reliable, easier to configure and maintain, > alternative to mounting a remote filesystem using nfsroot and then copying > it into a RAM disk for embedded systems which boot from the network but > run completely from a RAM disk so they don't fall over whenever the > network does. > > BTW, I ported it to 2.3 and improved it quite a bit. Now you can turn off > the boot loader initrd support and still have the initrd-tftp work, and it > also handles nicely the case where you have initrd-tftp compiled in, but > don't want to use it. I consider it to be pretty much complete now and > won't be putting any more work into it except for back porting the > improvements to 2.2 unless somebody finds a bug in it. > > See: > ftp://ftp.linuxhacker.org/pub/kernel/initrd-tftp/initrd-tftp.0.9.patch.gz > > That patch was against 2.3.36, but it should work fine with later kernels > too. I sent it to Linus just after he released 2.3.36, but he didn't reply > about whether he would consider including it or not. > > --------------- Linux- the choice of a GNU generation. -------------- > : Alex Holden (M1CJD)- Caver, Programmer, Land Rover nut, Radio Ham : > -------------------- http://www.linuxhacker.org/ -------------------- > > > - > To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in > the body of a message to majordomo@vger.rutgers.edu > Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/
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