[gPXE] Etherboot nbi.img using gPXE

[Shao Miller]

Chapman, Mark wrote:
>
> With that said let me first try and describe the system:
>
> ... 
>
> The server is Linux 2.6.x and setup to support Etherboot via TFTP.  I 
> don't believe it is setup to support gPXE at all.
>
Etherboot and gPXE can function in similar scenarios.  Both can 
communicate with a DHCP service to obtain PXE parameters, such as an IP 
address and a boot file.
>
> The image used to download to the diskless workstation is based on a 
> linux 2.4.x kernel.
>
I believe that you can load Linux 2.4.x kernels from gPXE.
>
> ...I created a DOS floppy disk image that I can boot to also on the 
> diskless system.
>
A DOS floppy image can be loaded with gPXE -> MEMDISK, where MEMDISK is 
loaded as a "kernel" by gPXE.  The floppy image is supplied as the 
initrd.  MEMDISK will then take the initrd and emulate a floppy disk and 
boot it.  Assuming that the DHCP service provides the next-server DHCP 
option to the gPXE client, you could do something like the following 
from the gPXE CLI (and which could be adapted to a script).

gPXE> initrd dosimg.vfd
...ok
gPXE> chain memdisk
>
> So any documentation you can point me to (specifically to solve this 
> problem) would be great.
>
Could you please describe what the end goal is?  There might be a way to 
accomplish it without using wrappers or your nbi.img.  Will you have a 
mixture of both older Etherboot clients as well as newer gPXE clients?  
What's going to be booted?  A Linux OS?  DOS?  I apologize if I've 
missed these details.

- Shao Miller
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