Re: booting a ELF binary

[markus@infoscape.com]

Hi Ton,

 > Net/etherboot can easily boot MSDOS and linux images that are build with
 > the mknbi programs. Now I have `a' self contained ELF binary I like to
                                      ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Can you provide some more information about what you mean with
self-contained? I can imagine the following scenarios:

 - this is a program that requires a fully running operating system
   (Linux?) including all standard libaries, but it does not rely on
   any other programs/daemons.

 - this is a statically linked program; everything else is the same as 
   above.

 - this is a statically linked binary image, that makes calls into the 
   system BIOS. It does not neccessarily require an operating system
   or it does not even work, if a multitasking protected mode
   operating system is present.

 - all I/O is done by directly accessing the hardware. No operating
   system must be running.

 - ...

 > boot using a bootprom in stead of using the floppy that's delivered by
 > the organisation that delivers the stuff. Is that possible and of course
 > if so, how.

Depending on the exact details, things could be as easy as booting a
Linux kernel that launches you application instead of the "init"
process. This can be achieved by putting the file into an initial RAM
disk and renaming it to "/linuxrc".

On the other hand, if you cannot run the application from within
Linux, you will have to write your own loader. In all likelyhood, your 
image file uses only one very small subset of the ELF format. You can
probably take a look at the ELF loader in the Linux kernel and use
this as a template for writing your own customized mknbi-ELF loader. I 
do not expect this to be very difficult and an experienced programmer
will probably be able to come up with a running prototype within a
time-frame of one to three days.



Markus

-- 
Markus Gutschke                         Internet: markus@infoscape.com
Infoscape, Inc                          Phone:    +1-415-537-3778
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San Francisco, CA 94105

Disclaimer: The above message represents my personal opinion; It does
            not constitute an offical statement by Infoscape!

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