[syslinux] Introducing a new com32 module : HDT

[Gene Cumm]

On Fri, Mar 13, 2009 at 1:59 AM, Erwan <erwan at seanodes.com> wrote:
> Pierre-Alexandre Meyer wrote:
>> On Thursday 12 March 2009 à 01:20:54PM, Gordon Schumacher wrote:
>>
>>> Quick question though; can it currently (or is it even possible to) log
>>> the output to a file someplace?  I'd never quite had time to work out
>>> how difficult that would be...
>>>
>>
>> You could for instance redirect the console to a serial port.
>>
>>
> This is a first solution but I think it isn't the most common use case
> for users.
> I think we have to face two different cases :
>
> 1: user is physically in front on the system and want to dump his
> configuration
> That usually implies not having network (isolinux) or running a non
> serial capable device (laptop, desktop)
> I mean by non serial capable a device that doesn't have a physical
> serial port or that users will not connect to another machine to dump
> the serial port.
> In that configuration, we have to find a "local" writable device to
> store the result or print something to the physical console.
>

I believe writing to a file system is intended to be forbidden.  Buggy
BIOSs can result in complete data loss.  If such a call were to be
implemented, it would have to have BIG warnings that data loss may
occur.  This is the reason why all of the stuff I've been playing with
lately is strictly read-only.

This solution would only work for writing to the current file system.
Writing to another file system would probably require massive
extension of the whole project, probably as a full blown environment
capable of finding hardware devices and addressing many file systems
that would have to be loaded from Syslinux but would then also provide
the basic capabilities of Syslinux.

> 2: user is running hdt on a remote host
> In that configuration, we can have usually pxelinux, gpxelinux or a
> serial capable system (server).
> In such configuration, we can imagine storing file on a remote protocol
> (tftp,http) but at least from now, that requires gpxe which isn't that
> common.
> I hope this situation will change quickly but we have to find a solution
> without gpxe to match a big amount of end users.
>

(Just to clarify because what you said sounds a little confusing:)
Don't you mean "user is running hdt, loading hdt off of the
network/remote host"?

> To sum up, I think the first solution that could match the bigger number
> of users is
> 1°) to find a local writable device to store the configuration
> 2° to find a way to store data using a remote protocol with/without gpxe ?
>
> So now... let's try to find how this can be done ;o)
>

Implementing a TFTP PUT in PXELINUX is the safest option but of course
requires write access to a TFTP server.

-- 
-Gene