Booting linux using Novell NetWare Remote Program Loader

Booting linux using Novell NetWare Remote Program Loader

[Pavel Machek]

Hi!

I've rather nice machine (elonex ws-425x), unfortunately it comes with
netware bootrom, which is in system rom (not easy to replace). It is
not equipped with floppy or hdd, and connectors are non-standard.

Therefore I'd like to network boot it... However I've no netware
server to watch. Could someone network boot machine using netware,
capture whole session using 

tcpdump -xi eth0 

and send results to me? It should be rather easy to emulate initial
handshake and use mars (netware emulator) to boot workstation...
								Pavel
-- 
I'm pavel@ucw.cz. "In my country we have almost anarchy and I don't care."
Panos Katsaloulis describing me w.r.t. patents at discuss@linmodems.org

Re: Booting linux using Novell NetWare Remote Program Loader

[Benjamin LaHaise]

Hello,

On Sun, Sep 09, 2001 at 10:09:21PM +0200, Pavel Machek wrote:

> and send results to me? It should be rather easy to emulate initial
> handshake and use mars (netware emulator) to boot workstation...

No need -- just search around for a copy of rpld.  I've got a few 
SiS based boards that netboot via rpl which rpld manages to handle 
like a charm.  Cheers,

		-ben

Re: Booting linux using Novell NetWare Remote Program Loader

[Pavel Machek]

Hi!

> > and send results to me? It should be rather easy to emulate initial
> > handshake and use mars (netware emulator) to boot workstation...
> 
> No need -- just search around for a copy of rpld.  I've got a few 
> SiS based boards that netboot via rpl which rpld manages to handle 
> like a charm.  Cheers,

Unfortunately, it is not that simple:

(From rpld-1.7/README:)

RPLD implements the IBM RIPL protocol, used to network boot some
machines. It
DOES NOT implement the Novell style RPL/IPX protocol.  If your are not
sure
which protocol you are using see the section "Troubleshooting".

And, indeed, it does not work with Novell bootrom. If you have
different version, please let me know...
								Pavel
-- 
The best software in life is free (not shareware)!		Pavel
GCM d? s-: !g p?:+ au- a--@ w+ v- C++@ UL+++ L++ N++ E++ W--- M- Y- R+

Re: Booting linux using Novell NetWare Remote Program Loader

[H. Peter Anvin]

Followup to:  <20010909230920.A23392@atrey.karlin.mff.cuni.cz>
By author:    Pavel Machek <pavel@suse.cz>
In newsgroup: linux.dev.kernel
> 
> RPLD implements the IBM RIPL protocol, used to network boot some
> machines. It DOES NOT implement the Novell style RPL/IPX protocol.
> If your are not sure which protocol you are using see the section
> "Troubleshooting".
> 
> And, indeed, it does not work with Novell bootrom. If you have
> different version, please let me know...
> 

If someone has specs for these things I might give implementing it a
shot.

	-hpa
-- 
<hpa@transmeta.com> at work, <hpa@zytor.com> in private!
"Unix gives you enough rope to shoot yourself in the foot."
http://www.zytor.com/~hpa/puzzle.txt	<amsp@zytor.com>

Re: Booting linux using Novell NetWare Remote Program Loader

[Pavel Machek]

Hi!

> > RPLD implements the IBM RIPL protocol, used to network boot some
> > machines. It DOES NOT implement the Novell style RPL/IPX protocol.
> > If your are not sure which protocol you are using see the section
> > "Troubleshooting".
> > 
> > And, indeed, it does not work with Novell bootrom. If you have
> > different version, please let me know...
> > 
> 
> If someone has specs for these things I might give implementing it a
> shot.

I found out I can boot it after little games with mars netware
emulator. However I have problems booting anything else than
freedos. Trying to boot zImage directly results in crc errors or in
errors in compressed data. Too much failures and too repeatable
(althrough ram seems flakey) for me to believe its hw.
								Pavel 
-- 
I'm pavel@ucw.cz. "In my country we have almost anarchy and I don't care."
Panos Katsaloulis describing me w.r.t. patents at discuss@linmodems.org

Re: Booting linux using Novell NetWare Remote Program Loader

[Edgar Toernig]

Pavel Machek wrote:
> 
> I found out I can boot it after little games with mars netware
> emulator. However I have problems booting anything else than
> freedos. Trying to boot zImage directly results in crc errors or in
> errors in compressed data. Too much failures and too repeatable
> (althrough ram seems flakey) for me to believe its hw.

I bet that's the same problem I had booting a zImage directly from an
El-Torito CD.  The problem was the autoprobing for the floppy type
performed by the boot loader.  It detected a 2.88 drive and issued
corresponding read requests (track x, 36 blocks; track x+1, 36 blocks;
...).  The bios performs these request, but it emulates a 1.44 disk so
the last 18 blocks of track x are actually the blocks from track x+1.
In my case I did not even got a crc error but an immediate reboot.

I removed the autoprobing from bootsect.S and fixed it to 1.44MB format
et voila, it worked perfectly.

Ciao, ET.

PS: Maybe that's the same problem lilo has on some systems with the
linear option...

Re: Booting linux using Novell NetWare Remote Program Loader

[Pavel Machek]

Hi!

> > I found out I can boot it after little games with mars netware
> > emulator. However I have problems booting anything else than
> > freedos. Trying to boot zImage directly results in crc errors or in
> > errors in compressed data. Too much failures and too repeatable
> > (althrough ram seems flakey) for me to believe its hw.
> 
> I bet that's the same problem I had booting a zImage directly from an
> El-Torito CD.  The problem was the autoprobing for the floppy type
> performed by the boot loader.  It detected a 2.88 drive and issued
> corresponding read requests (track x, 36 blocks; track x+1, 36 blocks;
> ...).  The bios performs these request, but it emulates a 1.44 disk so
> the last 18 blocks of track x are actually the blocks from track x+1.
> In my case I did not even got a crc error but an immediate reboot.
> 
> I removed the autoprobing from bootsect.S and fixed it to 1.44MB format
> et voila, it worked perfectly.

Do you have patch to do that?
								Pavel

-- 
The best software in life is free (not shareware)!		Pavel
GCM d? s-: !g p?:+ au- a--@ w+ v- C++@ UL+++ L++ N++ E++ W--- M- Y- R+

Re: Booting linux using Novell NetWare Remote Program Loader

[H. Peter Anvin]

Pavel Machek wrote:
> Hi!
> 
> 
>>>I found out I can boot it after little games with mars netware
>>>emulator. However I have problems booting anything else than
>>>freedos. Trying to boot zImage directly results in crc errors or in
>>>errors in compressed data. Too much failures and too repeatable
>>>(althrough ram seems flakey) for me to believe its hw.
>>>
>>I bet that's the same problem I had booting a zImage directly from an
>>El-Torito CD.  The problem was the autoprobing for the floppy type
>>performed by the boot loader.  It detected a 2.88 drive and issued
>>corresponding read requests (track x, 36 blocks; track x+1, 36 blocks;
>>...).  The bios performs these request, but it emulates a 1.44 disk so
>>the last 18 blocks of track x are actually the blocks from track x+1.
>>In my case I did not even got a crc error but an immediate reboot.
>>
>>I removed the autoprobing from bootsect.S and fixed it to 1.44MB format
>>et voila, it worked perfectly.
>>
> 
> Do you have patch to do that?
> 								Pavel

Sure... but he's hard-coding 1.44 MB format.  This behaviour is also 
quite common on for example USB drives; it is simply no longer correct 
to expect the BIOS to reject invalid CHS geometries (if the underlying 
drive is really an LBA drive most if not all BIOSes will simply apply 
the conversion algorithm without limit checks.)

Can we please retire bootsect.S and get on with our lives?  This thing 
is becoming a millstone around our necks!

(For those that don't know, there is no way to determine the CHS 
geometry of floppy media from the BIOS.  The "get geometry" call on a 
floppy drive returns what the drive is capable of, not what the current 
medium is using.  DOS and its relatives don't care, since a FAT 
filesystem includes the CHS geometry in the superblock.)

	-hpa

Re: Booting linux using Novell NetWare Remote Program Loader

[Edgar Toernig]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 325 bytes --]

Pavel Machek wrote:
> 
> > I removed the autoprobing from bootsect.S and fixed it to 1.44MB format
> > et voila, it worked perfectly.
> 
> Do you have patch to do that?

I have a patch for 2.0.x only.  But it should be enough to change the
disksizes table at the end of bootsect.S to:

disksizes: .byte 18,18,18,18

Ciao, ET.

[-- Attachment #2: boot-diff --]
[-- Type: text/plain, Size: 1016 bytes --]

--- /usr/src/2.0.36/arch/i386/boot/bootsect.S	Sat Mar  9 12:31:42 1996
+++ /tmp/q/bootsect.S	Thu Aug 23 21:42:20 2001
@@ -102,6 +102,7 @@
 
 ! cx contains 0 from rep movsw above
 
+#if 0 /* ET: let the DPT alone */
 	mov	fs,cx
 	mov	bx,#0x78		! fs:bx is parameter table address
 	push	ds
@@ -124,6 +125,7 @@
 	mov	(bx),di
 	seg fs
 	mov	2(bx),es
+#endif
 
 ! load the setup-sectors directly after the bootblock.
 ! Note that 'es' is already set up.
@@ -170,6 +172,7 @@
 ! 36 sectors if sector 36 can be read, 18 sectors if sector 18 can be read,
 ! 15 if sector 15 can be read.  Otherwise guess 9.
 
+#if 0 /* ET: no autoprobing.  asume 1.44mb disk */
 	mov	si,#disksizes		! table of sizes to try
 
 probe_loop:
@@ -187,6 +190,7 @@
 	mov	ax,#0x0201		! service 2, 1 sector
 	int	0x13
 	jc	probe_loop		! try next value
+#endif
 
 #endif
 
@@ -438,10 +442,12 @@
 	ret
 
 sectors:
-	.word 0
+	.word 18
 
+#if 0 /* ET: no autoprobing.  fixed at 18 sectors */
 disksizes:
 	.byte 36,18,15,9
+#endif
 
 msg1:
 	.byte 13,10

Re: Booting linux using Novell NetWare Remote Program Loader

[Pavel Machek]

Hi!
> > > I removed the autoprobing from bootsect.S and fixed it to 1.44MB format
> > > et voila, it worked perfectly.
> > 
> > Do you have patch to do that?
> 
> I have a patch for 2.0.x only.  But it should be enough to change the
> disksizes table at the end of bootsect.S to:
> 
> disksizes: .byte 18,18,18,18

Yep, tried that. No more crc errors when decompressing. Instead,
sudden reboot when it finishes loading. OOps.

This is 486sx/25 booting from network. Kernel is 2.4.9, compiled with
math emu, and processor=386.  Any ideas what is wrong?
								Pavel

-- 
The best software in life is free (not shareware)!		Pavel
GCM d? s-: !g p?:+ au- a--@ w+ v- C++@ UL+++ L++ N++ E++ W--- M- Y- R+

Re: Booting linux using Novell NetWare Remote Program Loader

[H. Peter Anvin]

Pavel Machek wrote:

> Hi!
> 
>>>>I removed the autoprobing from bootsect.S and fixed it to 1.44MB format
>>>>et voila, it worked perfectly.
>>>>
>>>Do you have patch to do that?
>>>
>>I have a patch for 2.0.x only.  But it should be enough to change the
>>disksizes table at the end of bootsect.S to:
>>
>>disksizes: .byte 18,18,18,18
>>
> 
> Yep, tried that. No more crc errors when decompressing. Instead,
> sudden reboot when it finishes loading. OOps.
> 
> This is 486sx/25 booting from network. Kernel is 2.4.9, compiled with
> math emu, and processor=386.  Any ideas what is wrong?
> 								Pavel


Am I guessing correctly that this RPL thing is a floppy image emulator?
Then it probably becomes a matter of where that image lives (in memory, if
so where; or on the network and downloaded sector by sector.)  You may
want to try to make a SYSLINUX image and see if it works.

	-hpa

Re: Booting linux using Novell NetWare Remote Program Loader

[Pavel Machek]

Hi!

> >>>>I removed the autoprobing from bootsect.S and fixed it to 1.44MB format
> >>>>et voila, it worked perfectly.
> >>>>
> >>>Do you have patch to do that?
> >>>
> >>I have a patch for 2.0.x only.  But it should be enough to change the
> >>disksizes table at the end of bootsect.S to:
> >>
> >>disksizes: .byte 18,18,18,18
> >>
> > 
> > Yep, tried that. No more crc errors when decompressing. Instead,
> > sudden reboot when it finishes loading. OOps.
> > 
> > This is 486sx/25 booting from network. Kernel is 2.4.9, compiled with
> > math emu, and processor=386.  Any ideas what is wrong?
> > 								Pavel
> 
> 
> Am I guessing correctly that this RPL thing is a floppy image emulator?
> Then it probably becomes a matter of where that image lives (in memory, if
> so where; or on the network and downloaded sector by sector.)  You may
> want to try to make a SYSLINUX image and see if it works.

Yep, it is floppy image emulator. People are telling me it is
downloaded sector by sector. Do you have some "sure to boot" floppy
image somewhere on ftp?
								Pavel
-- 
The best software in life is free (not shareware)!		Pavel
GCM d? s-: !g p?:+ au- a--@ w+ v- C++@ UL+++ L++ N++ E++ W--- M- Y- R+

Re: Booting linux using Novell NetWare Remote Program Loader

[H. Peter Anvin]

Pavel Machek wrote:

>>
>>Am I guessing correctly that this RPL thing is a floppy image emulator?
>>Then it probably becomes a matter of where that image lives (in memory, if
>>so where; or on the network and downloaded sector by sector.)  You may
>>want to try to make a SYSLINUX image and see if it works.
>>
> 
> Yep, it is floppy image emulator. People are telling me it is
> downloaded sector by sector. Do you have some "sure to boot" floppy
> image somewhere on ftp?
> 								Pavel


There is no such thing, but this is how you'd build a minimal SYSLINUX
floppy image (remove the -s for better performance but somewhat reduced
resistance to severe BIOS bugs):

	su
	dd if=/dev/zero of=floppy.img bs=1024 count=1440
	mkdosfs floppy.img
	syslinux -s floppy.img
	mount -o loop -t msdos floppy.img /mnt
	cp bzImage /mnt/linux
	umount /mnt
	sync

Re: Booting linux using Novell NetWare Remote Program Loader

[Pavel Machek]

Hi!

> >>Am I guessing correctly that this RPL thing is a floppy image emulator?
> >>Then it probably becomes a matter of where that image lives (in memory, if
> >>so where; or on the network and downloaded sector by sector.)  You may
> >>want to try to make a SYSLINUX image and see if it works.
> >>
> > 
> > Yep, it is floppy image emulator. People are telling me it is
> > downloaded sector by sector. Do you have some "sure to boot" floppy
> > image somewhere on ftp?
> > 								Pavel
> 
> 
> There is no such thing, but this is how you'd build a minimal SYSLINUX
> floppy image (remove the -s for better performance but somewhat reduced
> resistance to severe BIOS bugs):
> 
> 	su
> 	dd if=/dev/zero of=floppy.img bs=1024 count=1440
> 	mkdosfs floppy.img
> 	syslinux -s floppy.img
> 	mount -o loop -t msdos floppy.img /mnt
> 	cp bzImage /mnt/linux
> 	umount /mnt
> 	sync

Hey, I tried this with syslinux 1.63, and it boots ;-). Wow. Thanx for
help, hpa.
								Pavel
-- 
The best software in life is free (not shareware)!		Pavel
GCM d? s-: !g p?:+ au- a--@ w+ v- C++@ UL+++ L++ N++ E++ W--- M- Y- R+

ACPI and SCSI.

[SirVer]

Hi everyone,

just a short question (probably a still unknown bug, I didn't find
anything about this): 
 My Box: a AdvanSys SCSI Low Cost Controller
         a TEAC CDR 55S CD-Burner connected to it
			a new motherboard (Asus) with ACPI, without APM support

now, when i enable ACPI Processor support (nothing else) and i try to
mount a CD, the computer crashes sometimes, but if it doesn't crash on
mounting, it crashes later while accessing the CD. The Display goes
black and the computer doesn't make a move anymore. The software power
switch doesn't work any longer. 
I guess, that this is a bug in the kernel, for the CD works when i
disable the ACPI support and for i never had any problems under *BSD.
But I wasn't able to track the problem down in the source. 
Anyone any ideas?

Thanks
Holger

Re: Booting linux using Novell NetWare Remote Program Loader

[Eric Lammerts]

On Sun, 9 Sep 2001, Benjamin LaHaise wrote:
> No need -- just search around for a copy of rpld.  I've got a few
> SiS based boards that netboot via rpl which rpld manages to handle
> like a charm.  Cheers,

I used to have Netware bootroms that didn't do RPL. They talked NCP
(like every other Netware client) and read a floppy image from
SYS:LOGIN. I never tried them with mars_nwe though.

Eric

Re: Booting linux using Novell NetWare Remote Program Loader

[Kai Henningsen]

eric@lammerts.org (Eric Lammerts)  wrote on 09.09.01 in <Pine.LNX.4.33.0109092306580.11042-100000@ally.lammerts.org>:

> On Sun, 9 Sep 2001, Benjamin LaHaise wrote:
> > No need -- just search around for a copy of rpld.  I've got a few
> > SiS based boards that netboot via rpl which rpld manages to handle
> > like a charm.  Cheers,
>
> I used to have Netware bootroms that didn't do RPL. They talked NCP
> (like every other Netware client) and read a floppy image from
> SYS:LOGIN. I never tried them with mars_nwe though.

What do you mean, "didn't do RPL"? That *is* how Novell RPL works. Also  
has a configfile under SYS:LOGIN where you can assign images to MAC  
addresses. Well, MAC address + IPX network pairs, IIRC. It's been a while.

MfG Kai

Re: Booting linux using Novell NetWare Remote Program Loader

[Eric Lammerts]

On 13 Sep 2001, Kai Henningsen wrote:

> eric@lammerts.org (Eric Lammerts)  wrote on 09.09.01 in <Pine.LNX.4.33.0109092306580.11042-100000@ally.lammerts.org>:
>
> > I used to have Netware bootroms that didn't do RPL. They talked NCP
> > (like every other Netware client) and read a floppy image from
> > SYS:LOGIN. I never tried them with mars_nwe though.
>
> What do you mean, "didn't do RPL"? That *is* how Novell RPL works. Also
> has a configfile under SYS:LOGIN where you can assign images to MAC
> addresses. Well, MAC address + IPX network pairs, IIRC. It's been a while.

It's a long time ago, but I remember reading documentation on RPL and
non-RPL bootroms. What I know for sure is that my bootroms worked
without loading RPL.NLM on the server.

Eric

Re: Booting linux using Novell NetWare Remote Program Loader

[Ross Vandegrift]

> Could someone network boot machine using netware,
> capture whole session using 
> 
> tcpdump -xi eth0 
> 
> and send results to me? It should be rather easy to emulate initial
> handshake and use mars (netware emulator) to boot workstation...

My employer uses RPL on a fairly large number of Netware DOS systems.
When I get to work after school this afternoon, I'd be more than happy to
grab a dump fo you.

Ross Vandegrift
ross@willow.seitz.com

Re: Booting linux using Novell NetWare Remote Program Loader

[Pavel Machek]

Hi!

> > Could someone network boot machine using netware,
> > capture whole session using 
> > 
> > tcpdump -xi eth0 
> > 
> > and send results to me? It should be rather easy to emulate initial
> > handshake and use mars (netware emulator) to boot workstation...
> 
> My employer uses RPL on a fairly large number of Netware DOS systems.
> When I get to work after school this afternoon, I'd be more than happy to
> grab a dump fo you.

Okay, never minds, I figured out how to configure mars, and to my very
big surprise, it seems to work. (I can boot freedos).
								Pavel
-- 
I'm pavel@ucw.cz. "In my country we have almost anarchy and I don't care."
Panos Katsaloulis describing me w.r.t. patents at discuss@linmodems.org

RE: ACPI and SCSI.

[Grover, Andrew]

Have you tried it with just the base ACPI support (no processor)?

Please send me your dmesg output and /proc/interrupts, too.

Regards -- Andy

> From: SirVer@gmx.de [mailto:SirVer@gmx.de]
> just a short question (probably a still unknown bug, I didn't find
> anything about this): 
>  My Box: a AdvanSys SCSI Low Cost Controller
>          a TEAC CDR 55S CD-Burner connected to it
> 			a new motherboard (Asus) with ACPI, 
> without APM support
> 
> now, when i enable ACPI Processor support (nothing else) and i try to
> mount a CD, the computer crashes sometimes, but if it doesn't crash on
> mounting, it crashes later while accessing the CD. The Display goes
> black and the computer doesn't make a move anymore. The software power
> switch doesn't work any longer. 
> I guess, that this is a bug in the kernel, for the CD works when i
> disable the ACPI support and for i never had any problems under *BSD.
> But I wasn't able to track the problem down in the source. 
> Anyone any ideas?