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Re: Netboot support for kernels > 6mb



On Thu, Jul 28, 2005 at 12:17:06PM -0700, ppc-dev@storix.com wrote:
> 
> The current version of yaboot support network boot for kernel and initrd 
> images that are < 6mb. There is a hard coded limit in fs_of.c
> 
> #define LOAD_BUFFER_POS     0x600000
> /* this cannot be safely increased any further */
> #define LOAD_BUFFER_SIZE    0x600000
> 
> 
> I would like to request to the community or anyone who is willing to work on 
> this issue to see if we can increase this to 10mb (8mb at least). Stock RH 
> kernel images are stripped and fall well below this limit, however a stock 
> SuSE kernel is already over the 6mb limit. This means that to netboot a SuSE 
> system you must create a zImage.initrd and boot directly from OF. I would be 
> willing to test/help out as much as I can, however, this is over my head.
> 
> Even if I can get some insight (specifically) as to why "this cannot be safely 
> increased any further". There was a patch made by Redhat to increase it to 
> 8mb, but that patch caused yaboot to fail to load the etc/yaboot.conf file. 

hence the comment saying were at the limits of how far this can go,
with this codebase anyway.

> Essentially the netboot features of yaboot are useless for some distros and I 
> feel will become useless for others as the size of the kernel images 
> increase.

the distros need to trim thier kernels, its still possible to do that.

alternativly someone could provide some hard-core active work on
rewriting yaboot and completing prom-libc.

-- 
Ethan Benson
http://www.alaska.net/~erbenson/

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