Re: Options for local booting of vxWorks and applications

[Graham Waters <Graham.Waters@triumf.ca>]

Possibility 1
The normal boot mechanism is to burn the bootrom code
into flash. What I have done on occasion (with an mv162) is to burn
standalone vxWorks into flash and place my application on
a ram disk (configured from onboard battery backed RAM)
From power on to application running takes 11 seconds.
However I have never tried this method to load epics
due to BBRAM size limitions. I think you could do something
similar with an MVME-5500.

Possibility 2
We also have other vme iocs (x86 based) that boot from an on-board
Disc-on-chip. With big enough disc-on-chip your entire application would
fit. You will need a TrueFFS driver.
See http://www.m-sys.com/

Possibility 3
Also for an x86 system. We place the bootrom code or standalone
vxWorks in flash made visible to the BIOS as "option ROM"
This takes about 20-25 seconds to get an application running
most of which is the BIOS doing its think.

Graham.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-b-tech-talk@mail.bessy.de
> [mailto:owner-b-tech-talk@mail.bessy.de] On Behalf Of Andy Foster
> Sent: 10 November 2004 15:11
> To: Epics Questions
> Subject: Options for local booting of vxWorks and applications
>
>
>
> Hello All,
>
> I was just investigating what options there are for booting
> vxWorks applications locally, rather than across the network and
> was wondering if any sites are already doing this?
>
> It seemed that one option is to use a SCSI device with a DOS file
> system attached.
>
> Is anyone using Compact Flash or any other type of local memory?
> I am really interested in solutions for the MVME-2700 and
> the MVME-5500 (in the future).
>
> What we are trying to achieve is faster local boots, reducing the
> network traffic at system startup.
>
> Many thanks for any comments and/or examples.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Andy
>
> --------------------------------------------------------------------
> Observatory Sciences Limited    Email: ajf@observatorysciences.co.uk
> William James House             Tel: 44 - (0)1223 - 508259
> Cowley Road                     Fax: 44 - (0)1223 - 508258
> Cambridge, CB4 0WX, UK          http://www.observatorysciences.co.uk

--
+---------------------------------------------------------------------+
|Graham Waters, Control System Eng    phone: (604)-222-1047 ext 6531  |
|TRIUMF --- University of B.C,        Fax: (604)-222-7307             |
|Vancouver, BC, Canada                e-mail: Graham.Waters@triumf.ca |
|                                                                     |
|http://isacwserv.triumf.ca/edevel/homepage/graham01.html 
     |
+---------------------------------------------------------------------+