Hi,
Did anybody ever boot a neutrino x86 system over network with a PCMCIA
wireless card ?
We would really like to do that, but we are not sure if it is feasible.
Would anybody suggest any document to read ?
Thanks for any help,
Andrea Borsic
School of Engineering
Oxford Brookes University
OX3 OBP - Oxford - UK
“Andrea Borsic” <aborsic@brookes.ac.uk> wrote in message
news:a3dtht$s4i$1@inn.qnx.com…
Hi,
Did anybody ever boot a neutrino x86 system over network with a PCMCIA
wireless card ?
You need a PCMCIA card with BOOT Rom, I’ve never heard of such a thing. Plus
not all BIOS support booting from PCMCIA devices
We would really like to do that, but we are not sure if it is feasible.
It is, but it depends how far you ready to go. For example the machine
could be equiped with a custom BOOT Rom via a custom card. You could have a
boot floppy with custom code as well.
None of these sound simple to me.
Would anybody suggest any document to read ?
Thanks for any help,
Andrea
Andrea Borsic
School of Engineering
Oxford Brookes University
OX3 OBP - Oxford - UK
If this is for a laptop, I would just make up a net boot floppy.
–
Bill Caroselli – 1(626) 824-7983
Q-TPS Consulting
QTPS@EarthLink.net
“Mario Charest” <goto@nothingness.com> wrote in message
news:a3e1ep$1mm$1@inn.qnx.com…
“Andrea Borsic” <> aborsic@brookes.ac.uk> > wrote in message
news:a3dtht$s4i$> 1@inn.qnx.com> …
Hi,Did anybody ever boot a neutrino x86 system over network with a PCMCIA
wireless card ?You need a PCMCIA card with BOOT Rom, I’ve never heard of such a thing.
Plus
not all BIOS support booting from PCMCIA devices
We would really like to do that, but we are not sure if it is feasible.
It is, but it depends how far you ready to go. For example the machine
could be equiped with a custom BOOT Rom via a custom card. You could have
a
boot floppy with custom code as well.None of these sound simple to me.
Would anybody suggest any document to read ?
Thanks for any help,
Andrea
Andrea Borsic
School of Engineering
Oxford Brookes University
OX3 OBP - Oxford - UK
\
Dear Mario,
I might say stupid things, you might correct me:
1)Can you start a system (for example from a diskette) with an operative
system (say DOS) and then bootp an image (say QNX) non related to the
previous operative system ? Does the system “reboot to the new image” when
it has been loaded ?
I’m trying to find out on the net about this, not successfully so far. The
idea comes because this morning I was on the phone with a vendor of wireless
products, he said somebody in their company network booted a system with an
ORINOCO card under DOS. That could help.
2)We would like to use bootp in connection with the developement of a
distributed data acquisition system. The system will have 10 nodes, we do
not like very much the idea of having to upgrade each node to the latest
version of the software, when we make changes. Especially during the
debugging phase this can be time consuming. The systems need to run together
in order to be tested, we cannot just debug and upgrade a single one until
final release.
3)Like you say I don’t see it as a short path. However I’m willing to
achieve a “good” solution, and learn something from this.
4)A “half-way” solution could be this one:
Have a single QNX image with just network drivers on each node. The nodes
gets their IPs via DHCP (this should work easily, shouldn’t it ? ). Then a
shell script downloads the application files from a ftp server on each node.
Any comments ?
Andrea.
“Bill Caroselli” <qtps@earthlink.net> wrote in message
news:a3e8pf$6pq$1@inn.qnx.com…
If this is for a laptop, I would just make up a net boot floppy.
The potentiel problem with this is your stuck with the version of kernel
that’s
on the boot floppy.
Booting from the server doesn’t have that problem.
–
Bill Caroselli – 1(626) 824-7983
Q-TPS Consulting
QTPS@EarthLink.net
“Mario Charest” <> goto@nothingness.com> > wrote in message
news:a3e1ep$1mm$> 1@inn.qnx.com> …“Andrea Borsic” <> aborsic@brookes.ac.uk> > wrote in message
news:a3dtht$s4i$> 1@inn.qnx.com> …
Hi,Did anybody ever boot a neutrino x86 system over network with a PCMCIA
wireless card ?You need a PCMCIA card with BOOT Rom, I’ve never heard of such a thing.
Plus
not all BIOS support booting from PCMCIA devices
We would really like to do that, but we are not sure if it is
feasible.
It is, but it depends how far you ready to go. For example the machine
could be equiped with a custom BOOT Rom via a custom card. You could
have
a
boot floppy with custom code as well.None of these sound simple to me.
Would anybody suggest any document to read ?
Thanks for any help,
Andrea
Andrea Borsic
School of Engineering
Oxford Brookes University
OX3 OBP - Oxford - UK
\
“Andrea Borsic” <aborsic@brookes.ac.uk> wrote in message
news:a3e9pu$7h6$1@inn.qnx.com…
Dear Mario,
I might say stupid things, you might correct me:
1)Can you start a system (for example from a diskette) with an operative
system (say DOS) and then bootp an image (say QNX) non related to the
previous operative system ?
That’s a possibility yes, but I don’t know of any bootp software that
can run under DOS.
Does the system “reboot to the new image” when
it has been loaded ?I’m trying to find out on the net about this, not successfully so far. The
idea comes because this morning I was on the phone with a vendor of
wireless
products, he said somebody in their company network booted a system with
an
ORINOCO card under DOS. That could help.
Yes, was it PCMCIA though. Problem with DOS is you need some sort
of PCMCIA driver to enable the PCMCIA controler.
[cut]
Have a single QNX image with just network drivers on each node. The nodes
gets their IPs via DHCP (this should work easily, shouldn’t it ? ). Then a
shell script downloads the application files from a ftp server on each
node.
As Bill mention in this thread, that’s not a problem, a small image
could be stored on a floppy or on a Disk-on-chip, or flash card and
the bulk of the stuff could reside on the server. That’s fairly easy
to acheive.
Any comments ?
Andrea.
\
True. So what? If you want to upgrade to a new version of the OS, just
create a new boot floppy.
Question to QSSL:
Could the software that normally lives on a bootp boot ROM be put on a
floppy so that you aren’t ever booting RTP until AFTER you receive it from
the boot server.
–
Bill Caroselli – 1(626) 824-7983
Q-TPS Consulting
QTPS@EarthLink.net
“Mario Charest” <goto@nothingness.com> wrote in message
news:a3ea40$7qu$1@inn.qnx.com…
“Bill Caroselli” <> qtps@earthlink.net> > wrote in message
news:a3e8pf$6pq$> 1@inn.qnx.com> …
If this is for a laptop, I would just make up a net boot floppy.
The potentiel problem with this is your stuck with the version of kernel
that’s
on the boot floppy.Booting from the server doesn’t have that problem.
[cut]
1)Can you start a system (for example from a diskette) with an operative
system (say DOS) and then bootp an image (say QNX) non related to the
previous operative system ?That’s a possibility yes, but I don’t know of any bootp software that
can run under DOS.
I will try to get in touch with the people I have spoken to, and post here
any information.
Does the system “reboot to the new image” when
it has been loaded ?I’m trying to find out on the net about this, not successfully so far.
The
idea comes because this morning I was on the phone with a vendor of
wireless
products, he said somebody in their company network booted a system with
an
ORINOCO card under DOS. That could help.Yes, was it PCMCIA though. Problem with DOS is you need some sort
of PCMCIA driver to enable the PCMCIA controler.
I have found DOS drivers for PCMCIA ORINOCO card on the orinocowireless
website.
Have a single QNX image with just network drivers on each node. The
nodes
gets their IPs via DHCP (this should work easily, shouldn’t it ? ). Then
a
shell script downloads the application files from a ftp server on each
node.As Bill mention in this thread, that’s not a problem, a small image
could be stored on a floppy or on a Disk-on-chip, or flash card and
the bulk of the stuff could reside on the server. That’s fairly easy
to acheive.
I was thinking the only draw back is that the embedded system should know
the IP/name of the server to which connect to. With bootp you don’t need to.
If the IP address of the server is changed you need again to modify the all
the images. I’m not sure which options we could use to send multicast
messages and getting responses from the available servers (as bootp does).
Thanks very much for the comments.
Andrea.
“Bill Caroselli” <qtps@earthlink.net> wrote in message
news:a3ee0n$am3$1@inn.qnx.com…
True. So what?
Well if you have 100 system in the field I don’t think the admin
would appreciated. Isn’t that why bootp is for, make thing
easier to admin.
If you want to upgrade to a new version of the OS, just
create a new boot floppy.Question to QSSL:
Could the software that normally lives on a bootp boot ROM be put on a
floppy so that you aren’t ever booting RTP until AFTER you receive it from
the boot server.–
Bill Caroselli – 1(626) 824-7983
Q-TPS Consulting
QTPS@EarthLink.net
“Mario Charest” <> goto@nothingness.com> > wrote in message
news:a3ea40$7qu$> 1@inn.qnx.com> …“Bill Caroselli” <> qtps@earthlink.net> > wrote in message
news:a3e8pf$6pq$> 1@inn.qnx.com> …
If this is for a laptop, I would just make up a net boot floppy.
The potentiel problem with this is your stuck with the version of kernel
that’s
on the boot floppy.Booting from the server doesn’t have that problem.
[cut]
If this is for a laptop, I would just make up a net boot floppy.
–
Bill Caroselli – 1(626) 824-7983
Q-TPS Consulting
QTPS@EarthLink.net
[cut]
Dear Bill,
A boot floppy definitely would meet our requirements. QNX documentation on
bootp seems however to be focused on setting up a server. What would you
suggest reading in order to set up a bootp client ? How is initiated the
process ?
Andrea.
“Mario Charest” <goto@nothingness.com> wrote in
news:a3eafn$7ta$1@inn.qnx.com:
1)Can you start a system (for example from a diskette) with an
operative system (say DOS) and then bootp an image (say QNX) non
related to the previous operative system ?That’s a possibility yes, but I don’t know of any bootp software that
can run under DOS.Does the system “reboot to the new image” when
it has been loaded ?
Have a single QNX image with just network drivers on each node. The
nodes gets their IPs via DHCP (this should work easily, shouldn’t it ?
). Then a shell script downloads the application files from a ftp
server on each node.
Running on OS, to boot another is not a great idea. DOS might be an
exception as it probably leaves the machine in a state that most 32-bit
protected mode OS’ could boot.
There are a few programs out there (like Etherboot), that are targeted to
creating your own boot roms. The nice thing is that they allow you to
“test” your ROM image as a floppy disk boot. You could use those as a base
to making BOOTP like solution (without the licensing and other problems of
using one OS to boot another). The only problem I could see is getting
PCMCIA drivers for your NIC.
-Adam
Dear Adam,
I’m exploring the etherboot possibility, as you say PCMCIA drivers will be
the hardest problem.
[cut]
There are a few programs out there (like Etherboot), that are targeted to
creating your own boot roms. The nice thing is that they allow you to
“test” your ROM image as a floppy disk boot. You could use those as a
base
to making BOOTP like solution (without the licensing and other problems of
using one OS to boot another). The only problem I could see is getting
PCMCIA drivers for your NIC.-Adam
[cut]
Bill Caroselli, in this discussion, was suggesting the idea of booting the
system off a local image with cardbus and wavelan drivers, and then start a
boot sequence through the network.
Nor in the help files, nor in the administration documentation on the
developers forum I was able to find help on setting up a bootp client. Would
you suggest reading any documents ?
Thanks,
Andrea.
“Andrea Borsic” <aborsic@brookes.ac.uk> wrote in message
news:a3m65q$o4s$1@inn.qnx.com…
Dear Adam,
I’m exploring the etherboot possibility, as you say PCMCIA drivers will be
the hardest problem.[cut]
There are a few programs out there (like Etherboot), that are targeted
to
creating your own boot roms. The nice thing is that they allow you to
“test” your ROM image as a floppy disk boot. You could use those as a
base
to making BOOTP like solution (without the licensing and other problems
of
using one OS to boot another). The only problem I could see is getting
PCMCIA drivers for your NIC.-Adam
[cut]
Bill Caroselli, in this discussion, was suggesting the idea of booting the
system off a local image with cardbus and wavelan drivers, and then start
a
boot sequence through the network.Nor in the help files, nor in the administration documentation on the
developers forum I was able to find help on setting up a bootp client.
Would
you suggest reading any documents ?
There is already an image that should be very close to what you need.
Check /boot/build/bios.nfs-ne2000.build
It assumes the files are on an nfs server, that can easely be changed
to use qnet (no need to setup nfs). You have to the the network
driver (unles you are using ne2000 based NIC). You also have
to add the devp-pccard driver to get PCMCIA going.
Check
http://qdn.qnx.com/support/docs/embedding_sdk_en/building/building_nto.html
for info about building images:
Thanks,
Andrea.
“Andrea Borsic” <aborsic@brookes.ac.uk> wrote in
news:a3m65q$o4s$1@inn.qnx.com:
Bill Caroselli, in this discussion, was suggesting the idea of booting
the system off a local image with cardbus and wavelan drivers, and then
start a boot sequence through the network.
If you can get some packet driver source code for the cardbus card, you
could implement your own “boot” on floppy disk. This would be much more
complicated, but would avoid needing a host OS (and all the issues that
entails).
Nor in the help files, nor in the administration documentation on the
developers forum I was able to find help on setting up a bootp client.
Would you suggest reading any documents ?
Take a look at the help docs on /etc/bootptab file, and take a look at the
bootptab file that comes with RTP as an example to follow.
-Adam
“Mario Charest” <goto@nothingness.com> wrote in message
news:a3m8op$pu1$1@inn.qnx.com…
There is already an image that should be very close to what you need.
Check /boot/build/bios.nfs-ne2000.buildIt assumes the files are on an nfs server, that can easely be changed
to use qnet (no need to setup nfs). You have to the the network
driver (unles you are using ne2000 based NIC). You also have
to add the devp-pccard driver to get PCMCIA going.
Checkhttp://qdn.qnx.com/support/docs/embedding_sdk_en/building/building_nto.html
for info about building images:
Dear Mario,
The build file you are referring to is a good help. I would like to maintain
the images absolutely free from any information regarding the network
configuration, as it might change frequently. I will try to make an OS image
that boots, uses a dhcp to get the IP address, and gets from the dhcp.client
custom tags that will identify the NFS resources to be mounted. The boot
images will be completely unbinded from the networking environment in this
way.
Thanks for the help,
Andrea.