Subject: port-vax/16867: no netbootable boot loader
To: None <gnats-bugs@gnats.netbsd.org>
From: None <bouyer@antioche.eu.org>
List: netbsd-bugs
Date: 05/17/2002 18:36:57
>Number:         16867
>Category:       port-vax
>Synopsis:       no netbootable boot loader
>Confidential:   no
>Severity:       serious
>Priority:       medium
>Responsible:    port-vax-maintainer
>State:          open
>Class:          sw-bug
>Submitter-Id:   net
>Arrival-Date:   Fri May 17 09:40:00 PDT 2002
>Closed-Date:
>Last-Modified:
>Originator:     Manuel Bouyer
>Release:        NetBSD 1.5ZC
>Organization:
	

>Environment:
System: NetBSD cordouan.antioche.eu.org 1.5ZC NetBSD 1.5ZC (CORDOUAN) #0: Fri Apr 19 12:39:15 MEST 2002 bouyer@islates.antioche.eu.org:/home/sources/src/sys/arch/vax/compile/CORDOUAN vax
Architecture: vax
Machine: vax
>Description:
	Since the switch to ELF, there is no boot program in a.out format any
	more. However when netbooting the vax wants a file in mop format.
	mopa.out can convert a a.out image to mop, but doesn't know about ELF.
>How-To-Repeat:
	Try to netboot a vax using a recent current snapshot
>Fix:
	Workaround: use the boot prog from 1.5.3, which can load a ELF kernel.
	Fix:
	I can see 2 solutions:
	1) build a a.out in addition to the ELF one
	2) convert mopa.out to read ELF files.

	For 1) we need a ld script with merge the proper ELF sections together,
	so that objcopy can then convert it to a.out. I played a bit with this
	but didn't get very far, lacking basic knowledges about binary 
	data formats the VAX use.
	For 2), converting mopa.out to mopelf should be very easy for anyone
	familiar with vax/ELF (mopa.out.c if only 87 lines long once
	copyrigth have been stripped). This would mean we have to build
	mopelf as a host tool and include boot.mop in the distrib again.
>Release-Note:
>Audit-Trail:
>Unformatted: