Transferring an IFS to a target platform

Several methods are available for transferring an OS image from the host to the target system, including:

loading the image from a network via TFTP
burning the IPL and OS image into the flash boot ROM
copying the image onto removable media, then inserting the removable media into the target board

Note: Not all boards support all transfer methods.

To:	Use the:
Load an image from your network (e.g., TFTP)	Network
Load an image serially (e.g., COM1, COM2)	ROM monitor or IPL
Burn both the IPL (Initial Program Loader) and the OS image into the flash boot ROM, then boot entirely from flash	IPL or OS
Burn an IPL into the flash boot ROM, then load the OS image serially	IPL or boot ROM
Generate a flash filesystem, then add various files and utilities to it	Flash filesystem
Put the OS image onto removable media (e.g., USB memory, SD or micro-SD card), then insert the removable media into the target board	IPL or OS
Put the OS image onto target board storage media (e.g., hard disk, SSD)	BIOS or ROM monitor

See your BSP User's Guide for instructions on how to:

prepare removable media supported by your target platform
transfer your image to your target platform

For instructions on how to transfer a bootable image to an x86_64 target, see “Transferring an OS image to an x86_64 target platform”.

Combined IPL-IFS images

If you combine the IPL and the IFS into one image which you will copy onto a flash medium, you need to offset the beginning of the flash filesystem by at least the size of the IPL plus the size of the IFS.

For example, if the combined IPL-IFS image is loaded at offset 0 on the flash medium, to avoid overwriting the IPL and IFS, the flash filesystem must begin at an offset of the combined IPL-IFS image size +1. Or, you can store the flash filesystem in a dedicated partition.