Configuration parameters

You can control the behavior of the ARRIS Boot Loader through the use of configuration parameters. These are parameters and options to the boot loader, which control important aspects of the boot process, including:

• Which boot protocol to use
• The IP-address, port and possible proxy settings to the boot server
• Whether to cache the boot image in flash memory or not
• What server to send boot logging info to
• Whether to enable or disable the menus, Wi-Fi wizard and info screen
• and more...

The initial way to send some basic configuration parameters to the STB is through the use of a DHCP server. Vendor specific options are used to tell the STB which boot protocol to use (HTTP boot, Infocast, USB, etc) and the address of the boot server. The most common boot loader configuration parameters can be sent via DHCP, and an example DHCP config file is provided in the SDK.

Once the STB knows which boot protocol to use, and which boot server address to contact, it can then download a boot manifest file from the server. In addition to information on the boot image version and download location, this manifest file can also contain more configuration parameters.

For more permanent setups, and in unmanaged networks where the initial DHCP server cannot be configured, it is also possible to store configuration parameters into the STB flash memory. This process is covered in the section on factory defaults.