✎ httpboot - Etherboot/gPXE Wiki

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====== HTTP booting ======

Booting from HTTP with gPXE is as simple as replacing the DHCP filename field with an %%http://%% URL.  For example, if you currently have ///etc/dhcpd.conf// containing

    next-server my.tftp.server;
    filename "/pxe.0";

then you can just copy //pxe.0// to your web server and edit ///etc/dhcpd.conf// to contain

    filename "http://my.web.server/pxe.0";

{{ screenshots/uniboot1.png?360x200|Linux booting via HTTP}}

===== Scalability =====

HTTP can handle much larger files than TFTP, and scale to much larger distances.  You can easily download multi-megabyte files, such as a Linux kernel and a root filesystem, and you can download from servers that are not on your local area network.  We have successfully tested booting across the Atlantic using HTTP!
===== Using PXELINUX =====

PXELINUX versions >= 3.70 can use gPXE-provided HTTP.  (See syslinux/NEWS "Changes in 3.70")

By default, PXELINUX will look for its configuration file using TFTP.  To override this behaviour, you can specify DHCP options 209 and/or 210.  (See syslinux/doc/rfc5071.txt)

You can specify these options with your DHCP service or you can specify them in a gPXE script:

    #!gpxe
    echo Performing DHCP on first network interface
    dhcp net0
    set 209:string pxelinux.cfg/default
    set 210:string http://example.com/
    chain ${210:string}pxelinux.0

The 'chain' command above will be expanded by gPXE to:
  chain http://example.com/pxelinux.0
and the chained-to PXELINUX will look for its configuration file using the 210 prefix.
All relative paths specified in the PXELINUX configuration file will also have this prefix
prepended to them.

Trace: • appnotes • edd-utils • vmwarebios • doc • vmware • winbootibft • memsearch • syntax • commandline • mdeck • 2009

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