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Netboot

Copyright (C) 1996-2006 Gero Kuhlmann

0 - Copyright Notice, Acknowledgements

You are allowed to modify and redistribute this code under the terms of the GNU General License, which you can find in the file doc/COPYING. My special thanks go to Jamie Honan for defining the initial bootrom specifications, to Markus Gutschke for enhancing mknbi-linux, and to Jens-Uwe Mager for explaining to me the basics of the NFS networking system and sometimes helping me out with his wealth of knowledge, experience and hardware resources.

1 - Overview

Booting a computer without a hard disk usually requires a floppy disk drive or a network connection in order to get the operating system into the RAM and up running. This package allows a diskless PC to boot an operating system using a TCP/IP based ethernet network. That's done in the following steps:

• First the operating system has to be loaded into system memory. This can be done using a bootrom, which loads the operating system image over the network. The bootrom code found in this package can be burned into an EPROM, a Flash-ROM or even the system BIOS, or just copied onto a boot floppy disk. Please note that the term "bootrom" in all documentation texts in this package refers to the real ROM version as well as the version copied onto and started from a floppy disk. For the bootrom to find, load and start the operating system image it uses various standard internet protocols.
• When the operating system starts running, it has to mount it's root filesystem. This can either be done by using a network filesystem like NFS, or by using a ramdisk, depending on the capabilities of the booted operating system.

2 - Features of netboot

• Booting a diskless client either from an EPROM, Flash-EPROM, system BIOS or from a floppy without additional utility tools
• The bootrom code can use many different network driver interfaces including standard DOS packet drivers and NDIS (version 2) drivers and therefore supports almost any PC network card.
• Support for various PC standards including the BIOS Boot Specification (BBS), PnP BIOS Specification, POST Memory Manager (PMM) specification and Intel's Preboot Execution Environment (PXE) specification.
• Support of many Internet RFC standards, like BOOTP, DHCP, TFTP and Multicast-TFTP.
• Easy configuration of the bootrom under UNIX.
• The bootrom can load a BOOTP vendor extension file in order to support more space for tags. It also supports TFTP blocksize and filesize options for faster download of boot images.
• Using the Menu Generation Language it's possible to optionally boot different operating systems, and even implement management functions like automatic BIOS updates of booted clients.
• Cross-gateway booting
• Able to boot different operating system. Currently supported are Linux, FreeBSD and various DOS brands.

3 - Installation

All documentation can be found in the doc subdirectory. See the file INSTALL for installation instructions. If you have any problems installing or running the programs see the file PROBLEMS. It's organized as an FAQ and also says who to contact when you run into problems you can't solve by yourself.

IMPORTANT: BEFORE you start any installation please read ALL relevant documentation in the doc directory, especially the INSTALL file! Also, read all relevant manual pages which come with the various programs included in this package. Not reading and understanding the documentation can result in serious software and hardware damage... you have been warned!

4 - Internet resources

There exists a mailing list devoted to network booting. To subscribe simply send a mail with the only line

subscribe netboot

in it's body to

majordomo@baghira.han.de

The subject in the mail header doesn't matter. This mailing list is intended to be a general discussion forum about any aspect of network booting and is not limited to this netboot package. However, any new version of this package will get announced on that mailing list. After subscribing to it, you can send messages into the list by writing a mail to netboot@baghira.han.de. Before you subscribe to this list please observe the following rules:

• Get the help file by sending a mail with the only line

help

          in it's body to majordomo@baghira.han.de. You will then get
          a mail back which explains all features of the mailing list
          processor. It also explains how you can unsubscribe from the
          list.

        * Do not send any articles to netboot@baghira.han.de before you
          got the acknowledgement that you have been added to the list.
          Otherwise your articles will not go into the list.

        * Always send your messages from the mail address with which you
          have been subscribed. All mails from accounts not being sub-
          scribed will silently get discarded.

        * Make sure that your email address is valid and reachable. You
          will get unsubscribed without notice when your email address
          is unreachable for whatever reason.

        * Unsubscribe BEFORE your email address gets invalid to save the
          list administrator work

        * Unsubscribe BEFORE you start modifying or experimenting with
          your email system. You can always resubscribe when your system
          works stable again.

Netboot also has it's own WWW home page. Turn to

http://www.netboot.info

which is an alias for

http://netboot.sourceforge.net

to learn more about the latest version of netboot. This home page also offers an archive of the netboot mailing list and many useful links.

If you want to participate in the netboot development, you might also want to check out the netboot project page on sourceforge:

http://sourceforge.net/projects/netboot

5 - Disclaimer

The software in this package heavily interacts with hardware and software not only on the local system, but also on the boot server. Use it at your own risk. All participating authors cannot be held responsible for any damage done by this software, no matter if this software has been used as intended and described in the documentation or not. Please refer to the file doc/COPYING for further information.

For German users / Fuer deutsche Benutzer: Alle Programme, die in diesem netboot-Packet enthalten sind, interagieren z.T. stark mit der Hard- und Software nicht nur des lokalen Systems (in der Dokumentation "Diskless Client" genannt), sondern auch des Boot-Servers. Die Benutzung saemtlicher Programme, die in diesem Packet enthalten sind, erfolgt ausschliesslich auf eigenes Risiko. Alle beteiligten Autoren koennen fuer Schaeden, die aus der ordnungsgemaessen oder auch fehlerhaften Benutzung dieses Packets entstehen, nicht haftbar gemacht werden. Saemtliche Dokumentation in diesem Packet erfolgt in der englischen Sprache. Die Autoren koennen nicht fuer Schaeden jedweder Art haftbar gemacht werden, die daraus resultieren, dass die Dokumentation nicht verstanden wird. Durch die Benutzung der Programme, die in diesem Packet enthalten sind, erkennen Sie diese Regeln automatisch an. Weitere Informationen hierzu sind in der Datei doc/COPYING zu finden.

Gero Kuhlmann <gero@gkminix.han.de>