[Xen-devel] Re: [PATCH] Xen Grub-style boot loader

[Anthony Liguori <aliguori@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Ian Pratt wrote:

> I think to be useful this would need to run within the guest domain such that 
> the grub menu appeared over the guest console connection. We'd have to use 
> something akin to a real bootloader (but 32bit) to pull in the image and jump 
> at it. Using linux with a suitable initrd and kexec might be a good soloution.
>  
Making the console appear over the guest connection isn't hard while 
still having the boot loader be a dom0 process.  It's particularly easy 
if you make the console visible as a tty.  In the current Xend 
architecture, you would just dup the socket as the std(in|out) of the 
process and exec the boot loader before starting the domain.
I think the only real advantage to having it be a part of domain-U is 
that you avoid the problem with mounting a file system.  The more I 
think about it though the more of a security concerns worry me.  Long 
term, I think a domU loader is a better solution.  However, I think 
there's a large class of users where a dom0 boot loader would be just fine.
> I'm not sure that the interactive selection of kernels is the #1 requirement here -- I think its more about being able to read the kernel from the domain's file system, and to be able to control the command line options. 
>  
It's definitely not the #1 requirement but it's certainly useful.  You 
don't really need a boot loader to read the kernel from the domain's 
file system or to give the user the ability to control the command line.
Would you being willing to accept a boot loader that ran as a dom0 
process and exported it's screen through the console?  Even if it was 
only a temporary solution until a better boot loader was written?  I ask 
because I can probably code up the rest (I already can read the 
grub.conf off of a specified device) by tonight or tomorrow.
I think it would take more time than I could invest to do the dom0 
approach any time soon.  Unless of course someone else is willing to do 
it in which case I agree that the dom0 approach is superior :-)
Regards,
Anthony Liguori

> Ian
>
>  


-------------------------------------------------------
This SF.Net email is sponsored by: IntelliVIEW -- Interactive Reporting
Tool for open source databases. Create drag-&-drop reports. Save time
by over 75%! Publish reports on the web. Export to DOC, XLS, RTF, etc.
Download a FREE copy at http://www.intelliview.com/go/osdn_nl
_______________________________________________
Xen-devel mailing list
Xen-devel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/xen-devel