Adding non-kernels to boot-loader

[Nathan Kinkade]

On Thu, Nov 11, 2004 at 12:35:26PM -0500, Dan Kilbourne wrote:
> Nathan Kinkade extolled:
> 
> > You will probably have better luck using a more flexible boot loader
> > like GRUB.  How about just putting memtest86 on a floppy or CDROM and
> > your techs can boot to the removable media whenever they need to test
> > memory.  This approach seems much more flexible, as any machine can then
> > be used for tests instead of only the ones on which you have made
> > special configurations.
> > 
> > Nathan
> 
> 
> I would agree, but I am looking for more of an out of the box
> solution. We have a couple thousand servers, several hundred of them
> running FreeBSD. I want our build team to be able to simply install
> memtest as a bootloader option so that any time a machine needs to be
> tested, it can be without having to be removed from the rack.
> Currently we install the kernel-image-like version of it on all of our
> Linux boxen with no problems, I just need to figure out how to do it
> for FreeBSD. As for removable media, our machines are not built with
> CDs or floppies - everything is generally done via a network installer
> we have hooked up, so removable media is not an option.
> 
> -- 
> ___
> Dan

Ahh, I see.  Well, GRUB has the ability to load a network image.  I see
at the memtest86.com site that one is able to build a network bootable
image of memtest86.  This way you could keep a single copy on an
NFS/TFTP server and it could be loaded over the network.  GRUB will need
to be compiled with support for the various network cards you
use, though I would image that your data center probably uses mostly the
same cards in all the machines.

Nathan
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