Hi Luciano, I thought of PXE just because my up gradations would be easy. Now, I first need things working. So, a little shift in plans. I need to follow an authentication procedure using various authentication devices ranging from network, RSA, biometric, smart card, etc by first booting Linux and then boot windows OS. I am currently doing it by booting the complete Linux OS, authenticate the system, do a reboot to windows OS. You may ask me why? Because, it is required to not even access the windows image before authenticating the system. Problem is by going though the entire Linux booting and authenticating is taking up lot of time. I think I have 2 options: 1) Resize the Linux Kernel, boot quick, authenticate, reboot. (NOTE: Only if I can skip the BIOS POST tests during the REBOOT) 2) I want something that can do the job Linux is doing now, which can be pretty fast and easy to do (may be a boot loader that can help me authenticate with the devices mentioned above). Can you guys please help me suggesting how can I do this? Rajat, > I guess your authentication module would be running in real mode and not > in protected mode? If yes, then you can try to make BIOS calls to directly > read / write to hard disk. I'm assuming we're talking about a PC here? Is there an existing platform for setting the processor in protected mode with the required Phy-to-virtual tables and giving the control to custom application which can perform the required task? Long one... but detailed. Hope it helps you in understating. Regards, Mukund Jampala > -----Original Message----- > From: kernelnewbies-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:kernelnewbies- > bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Luciano Rocha > Sent: Wednesday, December 26, 2007 5:11 PM > To: kernelnewbies@xxxxxxxxxxxx > Subject: Re: Linux PXE info > > > > My plan is to execute a non-linux module for authentication. > > > > > > Steps involved are: > > > > > > * Start the system > > > * Network PXE starts, gets the DHCP assigned address > > > * PXE tries to connect to the nearby tftp server, grabs the NON-Linux > > > authentication module > > > * executes the module, I get the results of authetication > > > * Now, HOW can I access the bootloader on the Harddisk? How can we do > > > that? > > (Sorry for replying to this instead of the first post, I lost that one.) > > You should check syslinux (<http://syslinux.zytor.com/>), it has a PXE > linux loader, and modules for almost anything. And you can program new > ones. > > At the very least, check chain.c32 (com32/modules/chain.c), that does > what you want and you can use it as a base. > > -- > Luciano Rocha <luciano@xxxxxxxxxxx> > Eurotux Informática, S.A. <http://www.eurotux.com/> -- To unsubscribe from this list: send an email with "unsubscribe kernelnewbies" to ecartis@xxxxxxxxxxxx Please read the FAQ at http://kernelnewbies.org/FAQ
