Subject: Re: unattended cdboot
To: Bang Jun-Young <junyoung@netbsd.org>
From: David Laight <david@l8s.co.uk>
List: current-users
Date: 07/13/2005 20:41:57
On Wed, Jul 13, 2005 at 04:07:30PM +0900, Bang Jun-Young wrote:
> > 
> > A few words about my application, since I'm not sure it is supported
> > by cdboot today.  I have some unattended wireless routers whose BIOS is
> > too dumb or broken to boot from CD-ROM.  I would like to put the cdboot
> > primary bootloader onto a floppy disk; the secondary bootloader, kernel,
> > and ISO9660 root will go onto the CD-ROM.  There might be a bootable
> > hard drive---or a CompactFlash card, at any rate.  Is this something
> > that cdboot will support?
> 
> Not possible with the current secondary bootloader. It also makes use of
> the BIOS functions for CD-ROM support.

On i386 doing PIO based ATA(PI) commands direct to a drive might be
possible from some of the boot code - I wouldn't like to have to
squeeze it into the the mbr or pbr code though!

One issue is identifying the ioaddress of the cdrom device...

	David

-- 
David Laight: david@l8s.co.uk