[Beowulf] BIOS

[Geoff Galitz]

Is the "send message to install server" actually needed.  I don't know your 
setup.

I have made netbootable DOS images to do firmware updates, but without any 
networking in the DOS image.  I wrote the image to load any needed hardware 
drivers, have the firmware updater directly in the image, run the updater 
from an autoexec.bat file and then reboot.  All automatic Woolah!  Updated 
nodes.

-geoff

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Henning Fehrmann" <henning.fehrmann at aei.mpg.de>
To: <beowulf at beowulf.org>
Sent: Thursday, August 09, 2007 4:15 PM
Subject: [Beowulf] BIOS


> Hello,
>
> we are interested in flashing a BIOS image and in manipulating the NVRAM 
> of the motherboard
> automatically.
>
> Unfortunately, using certain vendors, the access to the NVRAM is not 
> straightforward.
> These vendors are offering DOS tools only, to write in the NVRAM, hence, 
> we have to boot
> a DOS image and here starts the trouble.
>
> Optimally, using the DOS environment does following things:
> * flashes the BIOS
> * sets the NVRAM
> * sends a message to the install server
>
> The last point is necessary to prepare pxeboot for the installation 
> process.
> It also means, we need networking under DOS.
> In particular, we are looking for a DOS-DHCP client. Everything needs to 
> be packed on
> a 2,9M floppy image.
>
> Has somebody experiences with this?
>
> In the worst case, the DOS environment is working autonomously and the 
> install server is 'guessing'
> whether the BIOS is flashed or not on the clients,
> e.g., by analyzing the DHCP logs, but this is not what we really want.
>
> Regards
> Henning Fehrmann
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