| Revision History | ||
|---|---|---|
| Revision 0.1 | 2003-10-30 | kp |
| Initial version | ||
| Revision 0.2 | 2003-11-06 | kp |
| Additional inks for CD building | ||
| Revision 0.3 | 2003-11-19 | et |
| PXEBoot chapter | ||
| Revision 0.4 | 2004-05-27 | kp |
| added IDE chapter (from Bering Guide) | ||
| Revision 0.5 | 2004-06-24 | kp |
| reworked IDE chapter | ||
| Revision 0.6 | 2004-09-06 | kp |
| added IDE-CF chapter written by Peter Mueller | ||
Table of Contents
To boot from a IDE-based medium you need to add the ide-related modules and hd/cd-rom modules to initrd.lrp (/boot/lib/modules) and to modify /boot/etc/modules. For your convenience the Bering-uClibc team provides an already enhanced initrd.lrp with all modules needed to boot from an IDE harddisk or IDE CD-ROM drive for Bering-uClibc version 2.0 and above.
You can download the file initrd_ide_cd.lrp from CVS.
Please rename initrd_ide_cd.lrp to initrd.lrp and use this initrd.lrp while following the instructions below.
To create a bootable CD-ROM you may follow the instructions in the
Bering User's Guide Chapter 10, with the exception that you don't have
to build a new initrd if you use initrd_ide_cd.lrp
renamed to initrd.lrp.
The approach described in the Bering User's Guide has the disadvantage that due to bad BIOS implementations, the CD may not boot in older computers.
We will describe the more general approach the Dachstein versions used to create a bootable CD-ROM, which allows to boot from CD on every computer that is able to boot from CD.
Main trick is to provide a bootable 1,44Mb floppy diskimage on the CD-ROM.
Format a floppy disk, add a msdos filesystem and make it bootable with syslinux:
# fdformat /dev/fd0 # mkfs.msdos /dev/fd0 # syslinux -sf /dev/fd0
Now mount the floppy and copy the kernel (linux), syslinux.cfg and
syslinux.dpy from the Bering-uClibc diskimage onto the floppy. Copy
initrd_ide_cd.lrp renamed to
initrd.lrp onto the floppy.
Before umounting the floppy edit syslinux.cfg on the floppy disk.
Edit syslinux.cfg and make shure the
PKGPATH points to the CD-ROM device and floppy as well (that's the
place where you store your configuration settings).
display syslinux.dpy timeout 0 default linux initrd=initrd.lrp init=/linuxrc rw root=/dev/ram0 boot=/dev/fd0:msdos PKG PATH=/dev/cdrom:iso9660,/dev/fd0:msdos LRP=root,etc,loca.....
Now you have a bootable floppy for your CD.
Edit syslinux.cfg and change the LEAFCFG
variable to point to your floppy device (so you can easily add or
remove packages to load without buring a new ISO-image:
display syslinux.dpy timeout 0 default linux initrd=initrd.lrp init=/linuxrc rw root=/dev/ram0 LEAFCFG=/dev/fd0:msdos
This will be your bootable the floppy for the CD creation.
The floppy device will be used to store your configuration settings.
Now you are ready to build your CD-ROM. Create a new directory and put all packages you like to have available on your CD into it.
Next dump your boot floppy build above into the same directory.
# dd if=/dev/fd0 of=bootdisk.ima bs=8k
Create an ISO-Image from that directory and burn it.
# mkisofs -v -b bootdisk.ima -c boot.catalog -r -J -f -o Bering-uClibc-CD.iso # cdrecord -v dev=[target] Bering-uClibc-CD.iso
Packages can be added or removed in a flexibel way by
declaring/undeclaring them in lrpkg.cfg
(Bering-uClibc <= 2.1) or leaf.cfg
(Bering-uClibc >= 2.2) on a new formatted floppy.
Additionally your configuration settings for all packages can be stored on the same floppy.
To add or remove packages just edit
lrpkg.cfg on a blank formatted floppy disk - all
entries on one line. It looks like:
root,etc,local,modules,pump,keyboard,shorwall,dnscache,webconf
Edit leaf.cfg on a blank formatted floppy
disk, add your packages to LRP and change PKGPATH to point to your
CDROM and the floppy device.
LRP="root config etc local modules iptables dnsmasq keyboard shorwall ulogd libz mawk libssl libm ezipupd dropbear webconf ppp pppoe libpcap" PKGPATH=/dev/fd0:msdos,/dev/cdrom:iso9660 syst_size=8M log_size=2M
The order in PKGPATH is important!
The leftmost entry will be loaded last - so your packages will be load first from CDROM and then from /dev/fd0. This will overwrite the configuration with the settings you stored on the floppy.
You can backup your configuration changes onto the floppy, you
have declared
leaf.cfg/lrpkg.cfg.
To only backup the changes in configuration and not the complete packages, which may be too big to fit onto a floppy, choose "partial backup" and /dev/fd0 as destination for the packages.
Partial backup does not work for etc.lrp.
To install Bering-uClibc on an IDE device, proceed as follows:
You have to make sure your IDE device has a first bootable partition and is DOS formatted.
Be careful: you will be destroying any pre-existing data !
Replace initrd.lrp on your Bering-uClibc floppy with initrd_ide_cd.lrp and boot from that floppy.
Keep a second floppy with the hdsupp.lrp package around and insert this floppy after boot.
After login mount the new floppy with hdsupp.lrp, install hdsupp.lrp, partition and format your IDE disk:
mount /dev/fd0 /mnt cp /mnt/hdsupp.lrp / cd / lrpkg -i hdsupp fdisk /dev/hda
Create an empty DOS partition table (using the 'o' command), create a primary partition and make that bootable (using the 'a' command). Save your changes with 'w'.
Format the IDE device:
mkfs.msdos /dev/hda1
and create a Master Boot Record:
dd if=/usr/bin/mbr.bin of=/dev/hda bs=512 count=1
Now you can install syslinux; issue the following command:
syslinux [-s] /dev/hda1
The -s flag might be required for syslinux to work with old buggy BIOSes. See the syslinux web site for more instructions.
Umount the floppy with hdsupp.lrp, reinsert your boot floppy and mount it:
mount /dev/fd0u1680 /mnt
Once this is done, the steps for Bering-uClibc 2.1 and previous versions and Bering-uClibc 2.2 and later versions are different.
For Bering-uClibc 2.1 and earlier versions edit the
syslinux.cfg file in /mnt and change the "boot" and
"PKGPATH" entries to point to your harddisk. It will look like:
display syslinux.dpy timeout 0 default linux initrd=initrd.lrp init=/linuxrc rw root=/dev/ram0 boot=/dev/hda1:msdos PKGPATH=/dev/hda1 LRP=root,etc,loc
Once you have finished with your floppy preparation, copy all the
files from it except ldlinux.sys (which is created
by syslinux) to the IDE device that you prepared earlier. You should now
be able to boot from the IDE device. Once again be careful not to copy
ldlinux.sys from the floppy otherwise your disk
won't be bootable and you will have to go over the installation of
syslinux on your hard disk again.
An alternative methode is to prepare and load the packages onto your disk with pxeinstall.tgz described in the next chapter. Besides it's pretty fast, once you've setup the environment, it is especially useful if your router has no floppy drive.
For Bering-uClibc 2.2 and later versions edit
syslinux.cfg and change the LEAFCFG variable to
point to your harddisk:
display syslinux.dpy timeout 0 default linux initrd=initrd.lrp init=/linuxrc rw root=/dev/ram0 LEAFCFG=/dev/hda1:msdos
Edit leaf.cfg and add your packages to LRP
and change PKGPATH to point to your harddisk.
LRP="root config etc local modules iptables dnsmasq keyboard shorwall ulogd libz mawk libssl libm ezipupd dropbear webconf ppp pppoe libpcap" PKGPATH=/dev/hda1:msdos syst_size=8M log_size=2M
If you have declared two partitions on your harddisk, and intend to use the second partition for backups, you have to add the second partition in the PKGPATH variable:
LRP="root config etc local modules iptables dnsmasq keyboard shorwall ulogd libz mawk libssl libm ezipupd dropbear webconf ppp pppoe libpcap" PKGPATH=/dev/hda2:msdos,/dev/hda1:msdos syst_size=8M log_size=2M
The order in PKGPATH is important!
Your second partition has to be the first entry to load the stored configuration, or partial backup, after the original (unconfigured) package.
Once you have finished with your floppy preparation, copy all the
files from it EXCEPT ldlinux.sys (which is created
by syslinux) to the IDE device that you prepared earlier. You should now
be able to boot from the IDE device. Once again be careful not to copy
ldlinux.sys from the floppy otherwise your disk
won't be bootable and you will have to go over the installation of
syslinux on your hard disk again.
An alternative methode is to prepare and load the packages onto your disk with pxeinstall.tgz described in the next chapter. Besides it's pretty fast, once you've setup the environment, it is useful if your router has no floppy drive.
This section describes how to setup an environment in which you can use PXE to boot systems like a Soekris net4501 or a LexSystem (tested with a CV860A version). A lot of information on this issue is already available on the internet. A lot of these pages describe how to get a system with complete functionality up and running this way. The main focus of this chapter is to get the system up and running with PXE boot so that you can format the CF card, put an msdos file system and syslinux on the CF card and finally copy all files necessary for a Bering(-uClibc) system on the CF card.
With the functionality of pxeinstall.tgz you can:
boot the system via the network,
put a number of different file systems on the CF card (minix, ext2, swap, msdos),
make the CF card bootable (syslinux) and
download files onto the card via http or ftp (wget)
download files onto the card via Windows networking (smbmount and cp)
If you need more functionality than this, you'll need to search further .....
The PXE boot functionality can only be used to get a system up and running, it is not intended to be used for regular use. For example, you cannot backup any files because the backup function does not exist.
A system up and running with a DHCP and a TFTP server. I used a RedHat 9.0 system with standard dhcp and tftp servers (not the pxeboot server that comes with RH 9.0).
The DHCP and the TFTP server must be running on the same ip address to get PXE boot working !!
The TFTP server MUST support the tsize option. The LexSystem is known to reboot without proper error messages if a TFTP server is used that doesn't support the tsize option.
The pxeinstall.tgz tarball which contains the files that must be put on the TFTP server.
Systems that do not have a keyboard and videocard (such as the Soekris) also need a system connected to the serial port so that you can control the system.
The pxeboot sequence goes as follows:
BIOS starts
The necessary IP addresses are acquired via DHCP. (IP address and the IP address of the TFTP server).
The pxelinux.0 file is downloaded from server via TFTP. (pxelinux.0 is a network boot loader).
The pxeconfig file is downloaded from server via TFTP. The pxeconfig file looks very much like the syslinux.conf file for normal LEAF booting. One of the additions is that some information is passed to the kernel command line for IP autoconfiguration at kernel load time (see step 3)
PXELinux starts
The kernel is downloaded from server via TFTP from the location specified in the pxeconfig file
The initrd file is downloaded from server via TFTP from the location specified in the pxeconfig file
Kernel starts
The network interface is initialized and autoconfigured using the parameters in pxelinux config file
Initrd starts
The initrd image contains TFTP client which is used to download the packages from the TFTP server.
A modified linuxrc downloads the packages supplied in the LRP variable from the TFTP server address mentioned in the "boot" variable
Normal leaf boot sequence continues from here. Packages are uncompressed and untarred and the system starts.
To configure the DHCP server you need to find out the MAC address of the interface on which the PXE boot will take place. In most cases the MAC address is shown when the PXE client in the BIOS starts.
See the system specific sections on Soekris and LexSystem how to find out the right MAC address on your system.
When you have the address, edit the file
/etc/dhcpd.conf:
#
subnet 192.168.1.0 netmask 255.255.255.0 {
default-lease-time 600;
max-lease-time 7200;
host pxe {
hardware ethernet 00:00:c3:2f:63:80;
fixed-address 192.168.1.254;
option host-name "pxe";
filename "pxelinux.0";
}
}Restart the dhcp daemon.
Unzip and untar the pxeinstall.tgz file in the root directory of
the TFTP server. On my system this is
/tftpboot.
The directory /tftpboot/pxelinux.cfg
contains three files: default,
lexsystem and net4501. The
file default is the one being used by the PXE
boot functionality and is right after unzipping and untarring a copy
of the lexsystem file.
This file has pretty much the same layout as any other syslinux.cfg file and defines where the kernel and the initial file system image can be found. Like any other LEAF distribution it also contains the packages to be installed. In this specific case the packages will be downloaded with TFTP prior to installation.
Depending on the system that you want to boot via PXE you should
copy either the lexsystem file or the
net4501 file to default. The
lexsystem file can be used for systems with a
keyboard and video card. The net4501 file should
be used for systems with only a serial console.
Now that the needed servers are configured it is time to go to your specific system. In the following sections, the PXE boot sequence for the Soekris system is described, the one for LexSystem is similar.
Connect a terminal to the serial port and fire-up your Soekris system. You should see something like this:
OS ver. 1.10 20020603 Copyright (C) 2000-2002 Soekris Engineering. Soekris Engineering net4501 CPU 80486 134 Mhz 0064 Mbyte Memory PXE-M00: BootManage UNDI, PXE-2.0 (build 082) Slot Vend Dev ClassRev Cmd Stat CL LT HT Base1 Base2 Int ------------------------------------------------------------------- 0:00:0 1022 3000 06000000 0006 2280 00 00 00 00000000 00000000 00 0:18:0 100B 0020 02000000 0107 0290 00 3F 00 0000E001 A0000000 10 0:19:0 100B 0020 02000000 0107 0290 00 3F 00 0000E101 A0001000 11 0:20:0 100B 0020 02000000 0107 0290 00 3F 00 0000E201 A0002000 05 5 Seconds to automatic boot. Press Ctrl-P for entering Monitor.
The Soekris only supports PXE boot via the NET0 interface. So make sure that your NET0 interface and the DHCP/TFTP server are connected to the same network !!
Now press <Ctrl-P> and give the command boot f0.
comBIOS Monitor. Press ? for help. > boot F0 BootManage UNDI, PXE-2.0 (build 082) BootManage PXE-2.0 PROM 1.0, NATSEC 1.0, SDK 3.0/082 (OEM52) Copyright (C) 1989,2000 bootix Technology GmbH, D-41466 Neuss. PXE Software Copyright (C) 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000 Intel Corporation. Licensed to National Semiconductor CLIENT MAC ADDR: 00 00 C3 2F 63 80
Here you have the MAC address that you need to configure your DHCP server. If your DHCP and TFTP server were correctly setup and are connected to the right interface of the Soekris, the boot sequence should continue with:
DHCP /
CLIENT IP: 192.168.1.254 MASK: 255.255.255.0 DHCP IP: 192.168.1.200
TFTP /
PXELINUX 1.76 2002-08-27 Copyright (C) 1994-2002 H. Peter Anvin
Linux version 2.4.18 ..............
..
<snip> Linux kernel loading
..
Kernel command line: console=ttyS0,19200 BOOT_IMAGE=pxe/linux ip=192.168.1.254:::255.255.255.0:pxe:eth0 rw initrd=pxe/initrd.lrp init=/linuxrc root=/dev/ram0 boot=/tftp/192.168.1.200 LRP=etc,inittabc,hdsupp,wget,smbmount
..
eth0: link up.
IP-Config: Complete:
device=eth0, addr=192.168.1.254, mask=255.255.255.0, gw=255.255.255.255,
host=pxe, domain=, nis-domain=(none),
bootserver=255.255.255.255, rootserver=255.255.255.255, rootpath=
NET4: Unix domain sockets 1.0/SMP for Linux NET4.0.
..
<snip> kernel loading continues
..As you see, during kernel loading the ip configuration is set based upon the parameters passed on the kernel command line.
The whole sequence should end with a login prompt. You what to do next ;-)
The LexSystem we have tested is based on the so-called CV860A board with a VIA C3 533A processor. The board supports up to 512MB PC133 SDRAM and is delivered with two or optional three network interfaces (usually Realtek with rtl8139too driver). Mass storage devices supported are IDE HD, CF and DOM.
It is a good idea to have LAN as third boot device in the "Advanced BIOS Features". The network interfaces can be configured by pressing <Shift-F10> to enter the NIC BIOS setup. The options that must be set here are:
Network Boot Protocol: PXE
Boot Order: Int 18h (boot the devices ordered in Bios Setup)
show config message and show message time do not really matter...
One of the problems of the LexSystem is, that you do can not recognize which NIC you are configuring as it is not really shown if you don't have all 3 messages enabled (3 NIC boot agent configuration roms out there). Also the order in the BIOS is not the order of the interfaces set by the linux kernel...
We had to provide an separate configuration file, because the board behaves somewhat wierd during setup/installation with pxeinstall. During pxe part of booting it uses eth0 and after getting a dhcp address and changing to TFTP to load kernel, basic cfg and basic applications it uses eth1. Additionally it is important that eth0 and eth1 connect the same LAN segment during install, because DHCP server and TFTP server has to be accessible on the same IP address.
If all went well, you should now be looking at a login prompt on your system. Login as "root", no password is required. The CF card can be formatted and installed with syslinux with the following commands:
pxe: -root- # mkfs.msdos /dev/hda1 pxe: -root- # syslinux /dev/hda1 pxe: -root - # dd if=/usr/sbin/mbr.bin of=/dev/hda bs=512 count=1
The last command installs a master boot record on to your IDE disk.
Now you can use the wget command to download
all the files you need to the CF card. Another option is to use
smbmount to mount a Windows share to
/mnt and copy all necessary files.
The pxeinstall.tgz requires that all supported network cards have to be compiled into the kernel, kernel modules for network cards are not supported. To allow you to make use of pxeinstall we added at least all modules provided with LEAF Bering-uClibc 2.0 to this special kernel . Please let us know, if you have success with hardware and network interface cards other than tested and described in this document.
Currently supported/compiled into the kernel are:
3c590/3c900 series (592/595/597) "Vortex/Boomerang"
AT1700/1720
AMD PCnet32 PCI
DECchip Tulip (dc21x4x) PCI
EtherExpressPro/100
National Semiconductor DP8381x series PCI Ethernet
PCI NE2000 and clones
RealTek RTL-8139 PCI Fast Ethernet Adapter
SMC EtherPower II
VIA Rhine
Winbond W89c840 EthernetI
This section is a contribution by Peter Mueller and describes how create a bootable IDE-CF device.
You can purchase CF-IDE adapters for very cheap. Both parts can be purchased for $30 US or less. The setup is simple. 1.) Setup the CF flash in the system. Note that you will want to configure the IDE CF card manually instead of letting IDE auto-detect the settings. To find the setting for your CF card, use IDEINFO. If you auto-configure the CF you might have big problems!!
2.) Create a dos bootdisk floppy from bootdisk.com. I have used http://csislabs.palomar.edu/Student/Utilities/boot622.exe succesfully.
3.) Install syslinux.com onto the floppy. The file is available from http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/boot/syslinux/. Grab the .zip file and extract syslinux.com onto the floppy that you just made.
If you run into problems with latest version you may want to use syslinux 2.07, which has been proofed to work.
4.) Boot from the floppy on the IDE-CF system. Fdisk the drive. If there are any partitions on the drive, delete them and reboot before proceeding further. Setup a primary DOS partition,and make it active. Reboot.
5.) Boot from the floppy again. Format the CF card with "format c:".
If you have other IDE devices in the system, the CF card might not be C:. Be careful here!
6.) After the format is complete, run "syslinux -s c:".
7.) Download the latest Bering-uClibc image.
8.) Using a CD-R, sneakernet (floppy), "CF on another machine", or
whatever means you feel comfortable with, transfer the Bering-uClibc LRP
& txt files to the floppy. Do NOT transfer
ldlinux.sys or you will have to start over.
9.) Change the syslinux.cfg part "LEAFCFG=/dev/fd0:msdos" to "LEAFCFG=/dev/hda1:msdos".
10.) Change the leaf.cfg part 'PKGPATH="/dev/fd0:msdos"' to 'PKGPATH="/dev/hda1:msdos"'
11.) Install initrd.lrp with IDE support
instead of standard initrd.lrp Currently this package is http://leaf.sourceforge.net/packages/uclibc-0.9/20/initrd_ide_cd.lrp
Rename the package to initrd.lrp and install on the CF card.
12.) Reboot & configure your happy IDE-CF system.
Most of the steps are the same. You will need to ask the
Bering-uClibc team for a kernel that supports your add-on card.
Additionally, you must turn off DMA support on your device or it will
work erratically. Here is how I did it in
syslinux,cfg:
serial 0 19200 display syslinux.dpy timeout 0 default bzimage initrd=initrd.lrp init=/linuxrc rw root=/dev/ram0 syst_size=20M log_size=20M tmpfs_size=256M LEAFCFG=/dev/hda1:msdos append console=ttyS0,19200 nodma=hda ide=nodma
Change hda to whatever your device is. Note the syst_size, log_size, etc. options that you normally see in leaf.cfg. These can be ignored, you can put these in leaf.cfg. I have tried 10 different cards. The only card I have had any success with is the SIIG Ultra-ATA 100. The SIIG Ultra-ATA 133 is a different chipset. Here is the product - http://www.siig.com/product.asp?pid=429. If the link is broken, it is chipset CMD0649 in linux. If you have any choice at all, use onboard IDE. The add-on cards are not worth the pain.
Thanks to the Bering-uClibc & LEAF teams for a great product! Thanks Nicholas Fong! Your page @ http://chinese-watercolor.com/LRP/hd/ is very nice!
Other sources how to build a CD-ROM are:
Charles Steinkuehler's LRP CD originally written for LEAF Dachstein version
Chapter 10 of Bering User's Guide written by Luis Correia