Re: [dhcwg] draft-ietf-dhc-dhcpv6-opt-netboot-05 - how to proceed?

[Thomas Huth <THUTH at de.ibm.com>]

> Ted Lemon <Ted.Lemon at nominum.com> wrote on 10/10/2009 19:32:55:
>
> I like the idea of getting rid of the priority entirely, and that
> makes sense if the bootfiles are all the same.   And since there's no
> way to differentiate between them, it makes sense that they are the
> same.   However, mentioning PXE and yaboot does point out a problem
> with this approach: it failed last time.   We wound up with yaboot
> options that were allocated without a draft or contact with the IANA,
> and PXE was a bit of a mess too.

Sorry, I didn't quite get this... I am not aware of yaboot using any
non-standard DHCP options.
Or did you maybe mean pxelinux options instead? pxelinux is also a
secondary stage boot loader, but for x86 instead of PowerPC machines.
pxelinux seems to highjack some DHCP options (see RFC 5071).

Looking at those options, it seems to me that these are all configuration
options for the bootloader... that highlights one of the main problems with
DHCPv4 network booting again: There was no official way to pass parameters
to the bootloader or OS kernel that was loaded by the firmware.
So I think that such an option highjacking won't happen with DHCPv6 again:
Since we've got a "parameter option" in our draft already which can be used
to pass such configuration data to the bootloader/kernel, there is no more
need that they abuse extra DHCP options for this.


Mit freundlichen Grüßen / Kind regards,
   Thomas Huth
                                                                       
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