[CUWiN-Dev] power+serial+ethernet over cat-5 ?

[Bill Comisky]

On Mon, 19 Sep 2005, David Young wrote:

> On Mon, Sep 19, 2005 at 12:22:37PM -0700, Matt Westervelt wrote:
>> Why don't you set the nodes to PXE on every boot (set before installing
>> in hard-to-reach-places).   If there is no image available, the box
>> boots normally (with a small delay).   If the box is lobotomized, either
>> trigger your PXE over the network (in the case of an already installed
>> dhcp server), or bring a laptop onsite to re-image.
>
> I don't remember why we don't PXE boot.  It is something I will consider.
>
> Dave


Below is from last August. The 30-45 second delay waiting for PXE booting 
to fail is certainly an inconvenience if it isn't adjustable..

bill

--
Bill Comisky
bcomisky at pobox.com


>From dyoung at pobox.com Fri Aug  5 11:48:06 2005
Date: Wed, 18 Aug 2004 17:25:53 -0500
From: David Young <dyoung at pobox.com>
To: cu-wireless-dev at ucimc.org
Subject: [CUWiN-Dev] [rob at nocat.net: Re: [Soekris] comBIOS boot sequence....]

More PXE developments.  A 30-seconds timeout for PXE boot, ouch.

Dave

----- Forwarded message from Rob Flickenger <rob at nocat.net> -----

From: Rob Flickenger <rob at nocat.net>
Subject: Re: [Soekris] comBIOS boot sequence....
Date: Wed, 18 Aug 2004 15:21:47 -0700
To: Soren Kristensen <soren at soekris.com>
X-Mailer: Apple Mail (2.619)
Cc: soekris-tech at lists.soekris.com

Excellent.  Thanks, Soren!  That works great.

One last question...  I want to use PXE as a "safety net" for units 
that are installed on a tower that have corrupted their flash, or 
anywhere that having access to the console port is not practical.  The 
only problem with attempting PXE on every boot is that it now takes 
about 45 seconds for PXE to fail before it attempts to use the flash.

Is there any way to adjust the amount of time that PXE will wait for a 
DHCP response?  If there is no bootp offer in, say, 3 seconds, there 
will likely never be one.  As it is, it waits about 30 seconds before 
giving up.

Cheers,

--Rob

On Aug 17, 2004, at 1:34 PM, Soren Kristensen wrote:

>Hi Everybody,
>
>I was planning to add the functionality to the BIOS the right way 
>using the "set" function, but since it keep comming up, let me explain 
>how to do it now....
>
>The comBIOS currently store the boot sequence in the 4 cmos locations 
>at 0x21..0x24. 0x80 mean the first harddrive, 0x81 mean the 2nd, 0xF0 
>is the PXE rom, 0FF is none.
>
>The comBIOS will try booting starting with the value in location 0x21, 
>and continuing with the next one if failing.
>
>to change it, do:
>
>> cmosread                    (see whats there now)
>
>> cmoswrite 21 XX XX XX XX    (new values)
>
>> cmoschecksum                (generate new checksum)
>
>
>If something goes wrong experimenting with the cmos, you can always 
>write some random value and reboot without doing the cmoschecksum, the 
>comBIOS will then load it with defaults when the checksum fails.
>
>Also, note that most empty CF modules come with a broken dos boot 
>sector that do not return correctly, and therefore the comBIOS can not 
>continue the boot sequence with a fresh empty CF module.
>
>And please note, my long term plans have always been to not have 
>anything if the cmos, all setting will be stored in the flash at some 
>point.
>
>
>Regards,
>
>
>Soren Kristensen
>
>
>_______________________________________________
>Soekris-tech mailing list
>Soekris-tech at lists.soekris.com
>http://lists.soekris.com/mailman/listinfo/soekris-tech
>

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----- End forwarded message -----

-- 
David Young             OJC Technologies
dyoung at ojctech.com      Urbana, IL * (217) 278-3933
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