AoE - ATA over Ethernet

Classic/“normal” Operating systems, like:

many Linux releases
DOS
Windows 1.0 - 3.11
Windows 9x

…just need the Interrupt 13 to run and to do file operations, such as:

loading Operating system components and booting the Operating System itself
writing log files
reading settings
loading drivers
…

So, the EtherBoot currently supported protocols:

TFTP
FSP
NFS
HTTP

provide a certain environment level, which is adequate and sufficient to boot the operating systems mentioned above.

New Operating systems, like Windows NT, 2000, XP, 2003 require a more in-depth hard disk environment.

In contrast to the default EtherBoot supported protocols the ATA over Ethernet specification additionally provides/emulates all necessary components for Operating Systems which require an in-depth hard disk / hard disk controller environment[…]

Chart / Diagram

Directory or hard disk (or hard disk image) containg an installed Operating System

AoE Server

Client

EtherBoot binary with AoE support

Boot priority set to "EtherBoot" in the BIOS setup menu

EtherBoot with AoE support will be used as boot device

EtherBoot with AoE support provides in-depth hard disk environment and loads the Operating System from the harddisk from the AoE Server.

AoE server applications for Linux/Unix

AoE server applications for Windows/DOS

…article will be continued

AoE state of development in EtherBoot

zpxe files have been handed out to demonstrate successful AoE boot. A RTL8139.zpxe demo file has been published by Michael Brown. A prebuilt Fedora 5 hard disk image can also be downloaded.

To get you started, retrieve those files (you will need a RTL8139 card in the client). Setup DHCP reasonably (so the .zpxe file will be loaded). Download the virtual hard drive blade server (or use a real AoE capable drive, of course).

Running