[syslinux] RE: RFC 3942 notice: PXELINUX, DHCP options 208-211

[Bernie Volz]

Thanks Peter!

Do you intend to write the required Internet-Draft (for submission as an
RFC) or do you want to have these options included in a "general" options
draft (for which I'm willing to act as editor).

- Bernie

> -----Original Message-----
> From: H. Peter Anvin [mailto:hpa at zytor.com] 
> Sent: Tuesday, January 18, 2005 7:48 PM
> To: iana at iana.org; dhcwg at ietf.org; volz at cisco.com; David W. Hankins
> Cc: SYSLINUX at zytor.com
> Subject: RFC 3942 notice: PXELINUX, DHCP options 208-211
> 
> 
> Dear friends,
> 
> In accordance with RFC 3942 I would like to submit the following DHCP 
> options for official consideration.  These options are used 
> by PXELINUX, 
> which is part of the SYSLINUX distribution, and although exact usage 
> count is impossible to determine, is widely held to be the 
> most widely 
> used method for booting Linux from a network.
> 
> ----------
> 
> Option 208: pxelinux.magic (string)
> Must be set to F1:00:74:7E (241.0.116.126) for PXELINUX to 
> recognize any 
> special DHCP options whatsoever.
> 
> Option 209: pxelinux.configfile (text)
> Specifies the PXELINUX configuration file name.
> 
> Option 210: pxelinux.pathprefix (text)
> Specifies the PXELINUX common path prefix, instead of 
> deriving it from 
> the boot file name. This almost certainly needs to end in whatever 
> character the TFTP server OS uses as a pathname separator, e.g. slash 
> (/) for Unix.
> 
> Option 211: pxelinux.reboottime (unsigned integer 32 bits) 
> Specifies, in seconds, the approximate time to wait before 
> reboot in the 
> event of TFTP failure. 0 means wait forever (in reality, it waits 
> approximately 136 years.)
> 
> ----------
> 
> Out of these, option 208 is strictly use as a safety and is obviously 
> not required if 209-211 become official assignments.
> 
> It is my belief that 209, 210 and 211 are of general interest 
> and should 
> be promoted to official.  In particular a more withspread use of 211 
> would probably improve remote booting reliability by giving 
> the server 
> explicit control over the early boot failure policy.
> 
> Option 210 could arguably be considered redundant with option 
> 17, but I 
> personally feel they are distinct enough to warrant separate 
> assignments.  In particular, 210 is more of a "current working 
> directory" than a root image path.
> 
> 	-hpa
>