Create dynamic startnet.php

[usvi]

We should create dynamic startnet.php. It would automatically splitstream also drivers from driver directory.

[usvi]

I forgot why this was supposedly hard. What I am missing? What happens if fragments contain syntaxes to startnet.php ? And what happens if/when startnet.php is exposed? It will expose local share password. But is it so bad? It is RO anyways. Maybe I have been overthinking complexity.

[usvi]

Now I remembered why it was hard. At least for windows, we need to do a dynamic IPXE ENTRY because if there is a new driver added, we would need to add it to repo and then regenerate EVERY iso provisioning we have. Not gonna happen.

The next question is, how do we justify NOT doing something similiar with Linuxes? Linuxes do not have inherent support of add-in drivers. Windows does.

[usvi]

startnet.php has been created but it does nothing.

[usvi]

This is extremely important notion:

https://github.com/usvi/easy_multi_pxe/issues/4#issuecomment-1773736337

The noreboot -thingy. Then the drivers are installed to the image after the actual installation completes. I say again: Genius!

[usvi]

Cool, I could splitstream even kernel modules: https://ipxe.org/cmd/imgfetch

  #!ipxe
  kernel vmlinuz
  initrd initrd.img
  initrd modules/6.0.16/e1000.ko /lib/modules/e1000.ko
  boot

[usvi]

Old ipxe:

kernel wimboot
set http_base http://172.16.8.254/netbootassets/windows/10/x64/Win10_21H2_English_x64-2022-02-02
initrd ${http_base}/BCD BCD
initrd ${http_base}/boot.sdi boot.sdi
initrd ${http_base}/boot.wim boot.wim
boot
sleep 5
goto end

[usvi]

Ok ok, so where would startnet.cmd go?

[usvi]

Actually, I'm again confused. What were we going to use the template with?

[usvi]

Ok now I dug it out. We need to get some files from the template. boot.wim. I read a comment BCD and boot.sdi are not needed.

[usvi]

No, I actually now think the template is actually ready for booting.

[usvi]

Booting only with the template:

[usvi]

Maybe this is the problem:

https://forum.ipxe.org/showthread.php?tid=18156&pid=34884#pid34884

[usvi]

Yes. This works minimally:

kernel wimboot
initrd --name boot.wim http://172.16.8.254/netbootassets/windows/template/x64/boot-gen2.wim boot.wim

[usvi]

So obviously, we need for fragment.php template_base (we already have preseed_url and http_base)

[usvi]

Commit c6c1f67656aba9477d9354b4974d2c5f72eed014 makes skeleton startnet.cmd to work. Easier than I thought.

[usvi]

I realized there will be a problem. We need drivers to be visible on the net.

[usvi]

Commit 669c01d7071ba7873af913fbe04e65c908d6c432 and predecessors make drivers exposed via network.

[usvi]

Commit 9b5bee02c6a70b688d92dc2f69d398ed56f5f2b5 implements this finally. YEAY!