man(1) Manual page archive


     PCIPL(8)                                                 PCIPL(8)

     NAME
          iplfat, ipliso, iplpxe - PC bootloader for FAT, ISO and PXE
          network booting

     SYNOPSIS
          Started by PC BIOS or chainloaded by partition bootsector

     DESCRIPTION
          Ipl is a PC bootloader capable of loading 32- or 64-bit Plan
          9 kernels.  It loads configuration from plan9.ini(8), and
          gathers additional system information (discussed below).  It
          loads the kernel into memory, and jumps to it in 32-bit pro-
          tected mode.  During operation, output is sent both to the
          VGA and serial consoles.

          The interpreted configuration is placed at CONFADDR, 0x1200
          along with any discovered hardware information.  The E820
          memory map is presented as *e820, and consists of 3-tuples
          of memory type, base address and end address.  All delim-
          iters are spaces.  The configuration variable drive0 holds
          information about the first BIOS drive using tag=value for-
          mat.  The required tags are tbdf, chan, and sectors.  USB
          drives also have the tag usb=y.  For PXE-capable systems,
          ether0 holds information about the first PXE device.  The
          required tags are ea, the ethernet address, and tbdf.  The
          kernels use this information to select the first ethernet
          port.  (see devether(3))

          The loader will automatically attempt to boot the kernel
          specified by bootfile.  If there is no such parameter, a key
          is pressed or the kernel file was not found then the loader
          enters the interactive boot console.

          The syntax of the boot console is the same as in plan9.ini,
          except for multiple configurations (boot menus).   The word
          clear [ prefix ] can be used to remove parameters from the
          current configuration.  If a prefix is specified, the first
          matching parameter is removed. If the prefix is omitted, the
          whole configuration will be reset.  If the word wait appears
          in the configuration then ipl will return to the console
          prompt after processing the file.

          The word boot will resume booting the kernel, while panic
          will warm boot the machine.

          The menu symtax differs from standard plan9.ini files, but
          the semantics are the same.  The menu section contains two
          types of items: optionn, and default.  The option syntax is
          optionn=blockname, Blockname is the name of the block to be
          included.  There is no descriptive text.  The syntax for

     PCIPL(8)                                                 PCIPL(8)

          default is default=blockname.  With a default, ipl will wait
          for 10 seconds for a response, otherwise selecting the
          default.  Without a default, ipl will wait indefinitely.

          There are many ways to boot a PC; there is one ipl program
          for each boot method.

        FAT Booting
          When booting from a harddisk or USB pen drive, a FAT16/32
          partition, 9fat, is used to store the kernel and plan9.ini.
          Due to size limitations, instead of loading the kernel
          directly, the bootsector, pbs, of the FAT partition loads a
          2nd stage bootloader, iplfat, from the root directory of the
          filesystem.

        CD-ROM Booting
          Booting from CD-ROM requires only the ipliso bootloader to
          be included in the ISO-9660 image under 386/ipliso, set as a
          non-emulation bootblock (see mk9660(8)). Boot parameters are
          read from cfg/plan9.ini.

        Network Booting
          With a PXE capable BIOS and network card one can download
          iplpxe and boot the kernel from a TFTP server (see dhcpd(8)
          and ndb(6) for details). Once started, iplpxe will read the
          file /cfg/pxe/ether from the tftp server to use as its
          plan9.ini. Ether is the MAC address of the PXEing interface
          in lower case hex.

     EXAMPLES
          On a typical FAT-booted server, iplfat might set the follow-
          ing based on hardware configuration

               *e820=1 0x0 0x9b000 2 0x9b000 0xa0000 [...]
                    2 0xff000000 0x100000000
               drive0=sectors=0x1e78780 tbdf=0x2000 usb=y chan=0x5

          On a typical PXE-booted server, iplpxe might also set

               ea=002590c1a56e tbdf=0x0c030000

          Note that drive0 is set by both iplpxe and iplfat.

          This configuration file will boot from either a primary or
          secondary file server.  To select the secondary file server,
          one must override the default within 10 seconds.

               [menu]
               option0=wrens
               option1=swift

               [wrens]

     PCIPL(8)                                                 PCIPL(8)

               fs=10.220.1.17
               bootfile=9cpu

               [swift]
               fs=10.220.1.22
               bootfile=9paecpu

               [common]
               console=0 b115200
               ether0=type=i82598
               auth=10.220.1.1
               nobootprompt=il -g 10.220.10.1 ether /net/ether0 10.220.1.1 /112

     FILES
          /386/iplmbr
          /386/iplpbs
          /386/iplfat
          /386/ipliso
          /386/iplpxe

     SOURCE
          /sys/src/boot/pcipl

     SEE ALSO
          devether(3), plan9.ini(8).

     BUGS
          Booting from disk requires a FAT filesystem.