String around my finger
A 'blog to remember things I found.

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I work for NIS ITS Monash University Australia.

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EtherBoot

"Etherboot is a software package for creating ROM images that can download code over an Ethernet network to be executed on an x86 computer. Many network adapters have a socket where a ROM chip can be installed. Etherboot is code that can be put in such a ROM."

We will be using Etherboot from floppy. The "Boot Rom" image is only 16 KB in size, initialises the Ethernet card, does a DHCP to get the PC's network config, and TFTP IP address and file name to download a full boot image (kernel or PXE) ...

Although the SMC EtherCard 8216C uses the 83C790QF chip, the obvious answer doesn't work. Get "probing pci / probing isa / [SMC9000] / <sleep> / ..." repeat.

As per this vote, we need a "wd" boot rom, and DHCP options

option option-128 e4:45:74:68:00:00;
option option-129 "NIC=smc-ultra IO=0x300 IRQ=10

These cards have 4 jumpers for fixed settings, and one for soft configuration. I found my driver disks I used for configuring WD 8003EB cards many years ago -- they were on 5.25" floppies !!

The current ROM-o-matic.net doesn't contain a "wd" image. Selecting "sn8390:wd" creates a "eb-5.2.6-ns8390.zdsk" which doesn't work.

Using version 5.2.2 and selecting "wd" creates a "eb-5.2.2-wd.zdsk" which DHCPs, TFTPs, boots, NFS mounts, but has problems at the "Doing the pivot_root" stage. "tcpdump" shows lots of UDP fragments that don't get re-assembled.

Using an Intel EtherExpress Pro/100 with a "eb-5.2.6-eepro100.zdsk" image works very well!!

[ /software | # ]