What is PXE?
●
Preboot Execution Environment
– An environment to boot computers using a network
interface independently of available data storage
devices (like hard disks) or installed operating
systems.
Slide 3
Slide 3 text
Requirements
●
DHCP Server configured to support PXE boot.
●
TFTP Server
●
Syslinux
●
Boot images
Slide 4
Slide 4 text
How it PXE works?
PC DHCP + TFTPD Server
PXE Broadcast
PXE Broadcast
DHCP + TFTPD Request
Slide 5
Slide 5 text
gPXE
●
An open source (GPL) network bootloader. It
provides a direct replacement for proprietary
PXE ROMs, with many extra features such as
DNS, HTTP, iSCSI, etc.
Slide 6
Slide 6 text
Why gPXE?
●
Not all computers support PXE boot.
●
gPXE supports many features that proprietary
ROMs do not support.
●
Allows booting from USB, CD, Floppy and chain
loading from existing proprietary PXE Rom.
Slide 7
Slide 7 text
Features
●
Booting from HTTP
– HTTP Servers scale better than TFTP servers
– Do not suffer from size limits
– Boot from servers not on the local LAN.
●
Limited scripting support
●
Ability to boot from a SAN, eg. ISCSI or AOE