[Soekris] Changing net4801 BIOS settings from Linux (boot order)

[Derrik Pates]

Andrej Ota wrote:
> Is there a way of changing boot order of devices from within Linux 
> (kernel 2.6.18)?
> 
> The idea is to preset boot order to "F0 80 81 FF" for automatic install 
> from the network. As the last step the setup should modify the boot 
> order to ordinary "80 81 F0 ..." so the boxes won't wait for DHCP 
> timeout every time they reboot.

Not really a way supported by Soekris; however, you should be able to
use the 'nvram' kernel driver, read the NVRAM data, and write out the
changes (or maybe just the whole thing; I'm not sure which is the best
way). My net4501's NVRAM contains the following (this is an excerpt from
'xxd' output of the /dev/nvram contents):

0000010: 0000 0080 81f0 ff00 0000 0000 0000 0000  ................

It would appear that the drive order is specified starting at byte
0x0013, based on what I see there; you'd have to check your own unit and
see if the offset is the same or not. You should be able to find it
fairly easily if you know the boot order you set in the boot monitor.

-- 
Derrik Pates
demon at devrandom.net