Network branch

[Manoel Rebelo Abranches <mrabran@linux.vnet.ibm.com>]

I'm working in a NET branch 
(http://bzr.savannah.gnu.org/r/grub/branches/net/) and have submitted 
some patches for network booting using tftp protocol and Open Firmware 
as the card driver (the implementation is sufficiently generic to 
utilize usual card drivers). This has been tested in P5, P6 and P7.

Although these patches were still not reviewed they have some great 
advantages when compared with yaboot:


1 - We can set larger block sizes (and then get larger files), a 
limitation in some firmware versions.
2 - Less memory usage. In yaboot the file is all downloaded in a buffer 
before is efectivelly used. Due to some file abstractions the file is 
nearly doubled in memory. In GRUB we free the memory used by the packets 
already read,then much less memory is necessary (useful in some big 
INITRD files).
3 - Better user interface.


This version is already very stable and I did many tests and fixed some 
bugs (in our lab there are some people already using it instead of yaboot)
We still have to add support for PXE using UNDI. If someone would like 
to help in this regard, I will try to look at it in the near future.

Some things that still have to be done:


1 - Support for PXE.
2 - Support for ipv6.
3 - Other protocols beside TFTP, like DHCP and TCP based protocols.

-- 
Best regards,

Manoel R. Abranches
Software Engineer - LTC - IBM - Brazil