Boot Storage Device

The new Boot Storage Device feature provides a service to manage system images stored on a persistent device. The API provides you with extensive information about a system image stored on a device. The Boot Storage Device feature incorporates three utilities - bootMonitor, bootAgent and bootConfig.

bootMonitor

The bootMonitor utility is able to boot the system from a system image on a persistent device or downloaded from the network. bootMonitor uses standard network protocols over an Ethernet line to load and boot the system image. This system image must be an ELF binary. For more information, see the bootMonitor(1M) man page.

bootConfig

While bootMonitor uses boot agents to locate and boot the required system image, bootConfig is used to select the boot agent to be used and to enable the parameters that describe the boot environment to be passed. For more information, see the bootConfig(1M) man page.

bootAgent

The bootAgent is a modular piece of code that groups together certain protocols or drivers and a parameter interpreter used by bootMonitor. The bootAgent is executed by the bootMonitor according to the bootConfig.