Re: [Qemu-devel] [PATCH 0/5] s390x: network boot

[Alexander Graf]

On 20/02/2017 07:43, Thomas Huth wrote:
> On 20.02.2017 15:19, Cornelia Huck wrote:
> > This patchset implements network boot for s390x. You need to build
> > a s390-netboot.img to actually perform the work (not included).
>
> Do you plan to include this into the upstream QEMU repository later, or
> will this stay an external binary?
>
> > Basically, we add support for virtio-net devices into the ipl code
> > and update the ccw bios to handle this as well.
>
> Just out of curiosity: What's the reason for shipping an additional
> binary here? Couldn't it be linked into the ccw bios as well (so that
> it's easier for the user to select a different version with the -bios
> parameter)?

The "other binary" (s390-netboot.img) is the equivalent of grub or 
pxelinux in an x86 network boot environment. That one usually comes from 
a different entity and different department :).

I haven't looked at the patches in detail, but do they follow the 
"normal" PXE boot flow? Do they do a DHCP request, send a proper 
Vendor-Class-Identifier for s390x, fetch the binary described by the 
"filename" property in the DHCP ack via TFTP from next-server and run 
that one then?

It would be very good to stick to that flow, so that you don't confuse 
your network admins :).


Alex