✎ howtos - Etherboot/gPXE Wiki

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====== HowTo Guides ======

This section contains tutorials that will guide you through performing a variety of network booting tasks for the first time.  You'll need to [[download]] and build gPXE before trying most of them.



===== How to deploy gPXE =====

There are three typical deployment scenarios for gPXE.

  * If you are a new user of gPXE, the quickest way to get started is to try putting gPXE onto a removable medium, such as:
    * [[removable|bootable floppy disk]]
    * [[removable|bootable CD-ROM]]
    * [[removable|bootable USB key]]

  * Network card manufacturers, OEMs, and seasoned users may be interested in:
    * [[romburning|burning a gPXE ROM into a network card]]
    * [[biosext|adding gPXE to the BIOS]]  (Useful for on-board NICs)

  * Users with existing large PXE deployments may want to try:
    * [[pxechaining|chainloading gPXE from an existing PXE ROM]].

  * Users with existing IBM/Novell RPL deployments may want to try:
    * [[rplchaining|chainloading gPXE from IBM/Novell RPL]].

{{ :bootroms.jpeg?350x190|Some boot ROMs}}

===== How to boot from a web server =====

gPXE can boot from a web server just as easily as from a TFTP server.  Web servers typically scale better than TFTP servers, and don't suffer from the file size limitations and other problems that plague TFTP booting.

  * [[httpboot|HTTP boot]]

===== How to boot from SAN =====

Boot from SAN is the process of booting from a remote disk, using a protocol such as iSCSI or AoE.  It can be used to boot operating systems that do not generally support network booting, such as Windows Server 2003, Windows XP or Windows Vista.

  * [[sanboot|Boot from SAN]]

===== How to boot Windows PE =====

Windows PE is the installer for Vista and later versions of Windows.  It can be started from the network using gPXE.

  * [[winpe|Booting Windows PE]]

===== How to configure your DHCP server =====

There are several DHCP options that can be used to control advanced features of gPXE.  Instructions are available for

  * [[dhcpd|ISC dhcpd]] (as shipped with most Linux distributions)
  * [[dnsmasq|DNSMasq]] (also shipped with most Linux distributions)


===== How to speed up SAN booting =====

Here is a method for speeding up SAN booting and reducing disk space usage.

  * [[cow|Setting up Cow Devices]]


===== How to make a bootable DOS USB flash drive =====

  * [[make_usb_drive|Making a bootable DOS USB flash drive]]
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