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pxe2ndstage [2006/06/14 04:39] stockholm created from old wiki UsingPXE page |
pxe2ndstage [2007/03/17 09:23] mdc Fix PXE link to LTSP site |
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| - | ===== Using Etherboot as a PXE 2nd-stage loader ===== | ||
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| - | Several NICS on the market have a firmware on them, containing PXE code. | ||
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| - | === So, what is PXE anyway? === | ||
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| - | PXE stands for Preboot Execution Environment. It has been designed by Intel(?, others too?) and specifies how a system should behave on boot as part of Intel's "Wired For Management" initiative. | ||
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| - | Mainly it allows for code to be downloaded and executed via a second stage loader - the "Network Bootstrap Program" (NBP) to do the real work, like pxelinux. Etherboot can be used as a NBP as well. Up until recently, just by unloading the PXE stack immediately and then loading the kernel as if it were installed in EPROM with a NIC specific driver; from version 5.3.3, Etherboot as an NBP can use the PXE UNDI driver abstraction, which makes an Etherboot more portable, at the risk of the unreliable PXE firmware. | ||
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| - | Besides, Etherboot itself can be run as the first-stage loader - see the [[pxe]] page for details. | ||
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| - | === How can I use Etherboot as a 2nd-stage-loader? === | ||
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| - | You may want to look into [[http://www.ltsp.org/documentation/pxe.howto.html]]. | ||
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| - | This is Marty Connor's excellent detailed description of how to use Etherboot as a PXE NBP which describes how to configure your dhcp daemon to hand out different filenames (once for PXE the address of a PXE 2nd stage loader aka the etherboot.zpxe file; second for etherboot: Which image to download etc). It is intended that better documentation will migrate here. | ||
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| - | Information about using PXE with the PXELinux NBP can be found at [[http://www.ltsp.org/README.pxe]]. | ||
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| - | The two stage loading might be difficult in NT-server-only environments (or restrictive configurations/setups where the dhcp-daemon is not as powerful as ISC dhcp3) - there is an unofficial workaround for this here: [[pxefilenamehack]]. | ||
| - | This patch makes etherboot just ignore trailing ".zpxe" on the filename received, to simplify DHCP configuration: so if you have a "bootfile.nbi" to boot from, just call your second-stage-loader "bootfile.nbi.zpxe", and use this last file name as your DHCP boot file name: the second-stage-loader will download the right "bootfile.nbi". | ||
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| - | You can find a precompiled and well-tested second-stage-loader that includes this unofficial patch in the "Contribs" section of [[http://thinstation.sourceforge.net/download.html]] | ||
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| - | See also: [[sampleconfigs]] | ||
