Greetings! First big thanks to the Syslinux community. My project, the Open Network Install Environment (ONIE), is using isolinux to great effect. Works great. I have a crazy idea I want to bounce off of you folks. Idea: I want to "warm boot" an ISO image from Linux. By "warm boot" I mean start executing the code (isolinux) from the ISO without rebooting and going through the BIOS. This is "somewhat" like kexec, but instead of jumping into a new Linux kernel it would be jumping into whatever code the ISO image has. Imagine a user space command "iso-kexec" existed for this purpose and a work flow like this: linux:$ wget http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/trusty-updates/main/installer-amd64/current/images/netboot/mini.iso linux:$ sudo iso-kexec mini.iso [ isolinux starts running from the ISO image .... ] Part of my brain says "it is all just software, so it must be possible". I can see needing to make a new Linux syscall, setting up a "boot-like" context in which the ISO can be read and executed. Lots of details I'm sure. Any thoughts from folks who are familiar with the core/isolinux.asm code? Is this idea too crazy? Cheers, Curt
On 03/17/2015 04:07 PM, Curt Brune via Syslinux wrote:> Greetings! > > First big thanks to the Syslinux community. My project, the Open > Network Install Environment (ONIE), is using isolinux to great > effect. Works great. > > I have a crazy idea I want to bounce off of you folks. > > Idea: I want to "warm boot" an ISO image from Linux. > > By "warm boot" I mean start executing the code (isolinux) from the > ISO without rebooting and going through the BIOS. > > This is "somewhat" like kexec, but instead of jumping into a new Linux > kernel it would be jumping into whatever code the ISO image has. > > Imagine a user space command "iso-kexec" existed for this purpose and > a work flow like this: > > linux:$ wget http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/trusty-updates/main/installer-amd64/current/images/netboot/mini.iso > linux:$ sudo iso-kexec mini.iso > [ isolinux starts running from the ISO image .... ] > > Part of my brain says "it is all just software, so it must be > possible". I can see needing to make a new Linux syscall, setting up > a "boot-like" context in which the ISO can be read and executed. Lots > of details I'm sure. > > Any thoughts from folks who are familiar with the core/isolinux.asm > code? Is this idea too crazy? >In theory it can already be done with kexec. In practice it almost never works well. -hpa