Netboot X5000

[Justin Hibbits]

On Thu, 31 Jan 2019 02:06:19 +0100
Al <al at datazap.net> wrote:

> Hello,
> 
> After months of going in the wrong direction with this, I think I am 
> finally on the right track. I came across: 
> https://wiki.freebsd.org/powerpc/UBoot-Install I have successfully 
> followed all the steps until where it says: "Once booted to netboot".
> It does not document how to set up a netboot for a uboot machine. And
> I have searched for hours looking for information on how to netboot
> an X5000 without success. Does anyone know where I could find some 
> documentation on netbooting the X5000?
> 
> Kind Regards,
> Al

Hi Al,

I can't say I've setup a 'proper' netboot system, but when I was doing
my bringup for the X5000 (and writing that wiki page) my netboot
consisted of a isc-dhcp server and a tftp server with the kernel and
dtb files.  The kernel at the time was a uImage, as demonstrated on the
wiki page.  However, now it's possible (and I strongly encourage) to
use ubldr to boot the kernel.  I will update the wiki page as soon as I
get the last piece of the puzzle committed for placing ubldr in the
right place at install time.

An alternative would be to create a release image (make buildworld
buildkernel KERNCONF=QORIQ64 TARGET_ARCH=powerpc64; make -C release/
cdrom TARGET_ARCH=powerpc64), put that image onto a USB stick and
"netbooting" ubldr (put ubldr on a tftp server, and boot that), and
setting the loader to boot from the USB stick.  You might be able to
just boot straight to ubldr on the USB stick, too.

- Justin