iSCSI boot

[Black_David@emc.com]

Somewhere buried in my "to-do" list is to provide some
guidance to the iSCSI boot draft authors about what
to do next.  What follows are more of suggestions than
instructions and comments are welcome.

- The draft will need to be split into two pieces,
	an informational draft describing the overall
	boot process and a standards-track document
	that standardizes the DHCP option.  The
	informational draft might benefit from being
	merged into the corresponding portion of the
	naming and discovery draft, since much of what
	it covers is how to discover the boot device.

- The DHCP option draft would need to be coordinated
	with the DHC WG.  This need for a new DHCP option
	may be a problem, as there aren't may option codes left:
	(http://www.iana.org/assignments/bootp-dhcp-parameters).
	Using DHCP to find SLP to find the boot device seems
	both clumsy and an invitation to problems (one more
	thing that can break and prevent booting), but I wonder
	if there's a way to [ab]use existing DHCP option 17
	(Root Path) for this purpose.
	
In any case, the use of DHCP will need to be pursued
with the DHCP WG via a document that describes only the
DHCP option to be standardized.  This probably shouldn't
be undertaken until the iSCSI naming and discovery draft
is relatively stable so that we're certain about naming
formats and mechanisms (e.g., is "Send Targets" involved
in boot? - this has implications for the information passed
through DHCP).

Comments?
--David

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David L. Black, Senior Technologist
EMC Corporation, 42 South St., Hopkinton, MA  01748
+1 (508) 435-1000 x75140     FAX: +1 (508) 497-8500
black_david@emc.com       Mobile: +1 (978) 394-7754
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