Re: Etherboot as backend of INT13h AoE driver

On Dec 3, 2005, at 11:35 PM, James Harper wrote:
> Thinking about what it would take to write a BIOS driver for the AoE
> (ATA over Ethernet) protocol, it occurred to me that Etherboot already
> contains the code to read and write frames from a large variety of
> different network cards, and that it might work as the backend of  
> an AoE
> INT13h driver.

This sounds like an interesting idea.  I've thought more than once  
that having an AOE driver for Etherboot would be very cool.

Linux Journal has a nice article on the technology here:

     http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/8149

> For this to work, Etherboot would need to be able to receive  
> interrupts
> from the card (eg not be polled), and would need to able to stay
> resident in high memory until another OS took over.

This sounds like something we could do with our PXE support.  I'm  
guessing that AOE code could be a protocol:

    aoe://xxxx/foo.bin

or something like that.

We have interrupt support in a number of drivers, and more can be  
added.  PXE requires INT support for UNDI, I believe.

> I think it might
> also need to be 16 bit code too... is Etherboot 16 bit, or is it only
> the init code which runs as 16 bit?

I'll defer to Michael on this, but I believe we already have to deal  
with this at startup, and he has added trampoline code to deal with  
16 bit code sections.

> Thanks
> James

Thanks for suggesting this.  I think it would be an interesting  
addition to Etherboot.

If it's something you're interested in helping with, let us know.   
I'm sure others will have some thoughts.
How would you like to proceed?  I think sample hardware is  
inexpensive, and I believe there is GPL-compatible code out support AOE.

Please let us know what you have in mind in terms of development.

Marty

-- 
     Try: http://rom-o-matic.net/ to make Etherboot images instantly.

    Name: Marty Connor
US Mail: Entity Cyber, Inc.; P.O. Box 391827;
          Cambridge, MA 02139; USA
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     Web: http://www.etherboot.org/




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