> > Installation uses HTTP to fetch a boot volume image.
> This is a problem with all of the suckless software and it, well, sucks.
may you please elaborate on why you think fetching boot images over http is a bad idea ? fwiw, a large number of networking gear boot their line-cards with image fetched over http e.g. csco's asr-5000 etc.
As someone unfamiliar with that domain, this just raises more questions for me. Is there some secondary layer of code-signing/validation that happens? Is the image host always within the local network and the connection assumed trustworthy?
> Is there some secondary layer of code-signing/validation that happens? Is the image host always within the local network and the connection assumed trustworthy?
some more information: basically most of the these routers etc. are 'chassis' based e.g. asr-5k is a 14u (iirc) device. depending on architecture, these generally have a bunch cards which end up doing most of the work e.g. session processing, forwarding traffic, running your routing protocols etc. etc. most of the session-processing cards don't really have any non-volatile storage media.
ok, now, two of these (for redundancy purposes) are management cards. these cards are not involved in any session processing, and provide 'shell' access to the device. these are generally used to configure the device, run diagnostics etc. etc. management cards have non-volatile storage media, which end up storing various boot images.
now, when a chassis is powered on, management cards are booted up first, using one of the stored images (depending on configuration). other cards (non-management) get their boot images over an internal network via http (e.g. in case of asr-5k).
tldr-mode: yes, the 'network' is trustworthy, and images are present locally (in most of the cases). though it is possible to boot management cards (if your read the above longish explanation) via images over tftp/scp etc. which can be as secure / insecure as you want :)
edit-001: lemme know if you need some more information, and i can see how i can make things clearer.
> This is a problem with all of the suckless software and it, well, sucks.
may you please elaborate on why you think fetching boot images over http is a bad idea ? fwiw, a large number of networking gear boot their line-cards with image fetched over http e.g. csco's asr-5000 etc.