GRUB and network (was Re: GRUB and Google Summer of Code)

[Vladimir 'φ-coder/phcoder' Serbinenko]

First of all please change subject line when topic changes
Michal Suchanek wrote:
>>     
>
> I would be interested in the x86 port and something like telnet and/or
> VNC terminal for Grub or at least reading configuration from the
> network. 
The problem is that for this grub has to be a server. For e.g. ftp grub
is a client so it needs to take any action only when it needs data.
On the other hand if grub acts as a server it must be able to process
the connection request at any moment.
> I guess it would be possible to test and add additional
> layers quite easily once one of the network cards emulated in qemu is
> supported.
>   
Actually we can just add a pseudo-card which will use sufficiently
low-level network interface to grub-emu
> There is already some crypto imported for password support so adding
> enough to have SSL would hopefully not be too difficult.
>   
Not true. Although we have ciphers and hashes we don't have either
asymetric algorithms or random generator. The first is easy to import
but generating random numbers involves gathering entropy which is
cornerstone of network cryptography. Without a good random number
generator most SSL algorithms will only make the user happier without
adding any security against attacker.


-- 
Regards
Vladimir 'φ-coder/phcoder' Serbinenko

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