David Evans <dfevans@bbcr.uwaterloo.ca> wrote:
> Olaf Seibert wrote:
> > 
> > Of course I'd like to install NetBSD on it, but first I'd want it to
> > netboot from my BeBox. But even though BeOS is mostly POSIX compliant,
> > stuff like mopd (requires bpf), rarpd (requires bpf) and rpc.bootparamd
> > (requires rpc) isn't all that easy to port.
>
>   AFAIK the current IP-centric nature of the Networking Kit may make these
> ports quite difficult.

I've been rummaging through Be's ftp site and it seems possible to make
an add-on for the netserver that gets to see all packets. I'd have to
check if the necessary include files are availeble.

Another option I thought of was to write a device driver for /dev/bpf,
which would look like an ethernet interface but filter packets being
delivered to the netserver, and allow bpf-compatible stuff as well.

It sounds possible but it is some work.

>   However, what might be possible would be to build a boot disk under BeOS.
> It should be possible to write out a disk label and a miniroot filesytem.  I
> don't really have time to look at it in any more detail than that, though.

I'd either need to get a fresh disk or sacrifice one of the disks in
the MV. As I understand that for the 3100/M10 the SCSI uses only PIO,
using local disks on the MV seems undesirable (for now) anyway. But of
course it should be possible.

The MV has no floppy drive (can it have one anyway?) so skipping MOP is
not a solution. Now that I think of it, for VAXen with a non-network
device to load the bootloader from, it might be useful to have a
bootloader that hardcodes (or allows manual entry of) rarp and
bootparamd info. Then all it needs is NFS.

> -- 
> David Evans          (NeXTMail/MIME OK)             dfevans@bbcr.uwaterloo.ca