>PXE was designed to ease care and feeding of terminals that boot remotely. >My understanding of PXE (and it may be mistaken) is that it's an execution >environment present in ROM on a network card, and that it understands enough >about DHCP and TFTP to download its own PXE-compliant image and run it, and >that all configuration of the PXE bootroms is done by a config file on the >server. In other words, there's no boot prom involved, and no kernel/boot >image is ever stored anywhere on a PXE client. Thus you don't add it to the >bios. At least that's my understanding, but I don't use PXE. Although some >evidence in support of this understanding may be that many PXE NICs do not >have boot prom sockets.
PXE code is also present in ROM, only this is usually the same Flash PROM that holds the BIOS, to hold down costs. A PXE bootloader plays exactly the same role that Etherboot does, only their steps are different. >Thus what you need to do is put your PXE rom image on your SERVER, and >somehow set up that server to respond to requests from PXE clients by >handing them that PXE rom image. The pxe rom image in turn will be loaded >into memory on the client, and then will take over and start looking for a >kernel, like normal. What you are first loading in PXE is not a ROM image, but a secondary loader. >It looks like pxe will take a bit of work to set up, but it'll be a lot less >work (and less violent) than reflashing all your bioses! I think the whole >point of PXE in the first place was to avoid having to burn EEPROMS for all >your network cards (a problem when you have hundreds of clients) or flash >crazy bioses. But only by virtue of PXE being already incorporated into the BIOS Flash PROM by the motherboard manufacturer. It's not a property of PXE itself. Some boards come programmed with RPL for example. With some BIOSes it is possible to reprogram the part of the Flash PROM that used to hold or potentially holds PXE, with Etherboot. Whether you choose to replace PXE, or chain to Etherboot, or boot direct from PXE is your call. ------------------------------------------------------- This sf.net email is sponsored by:ThinkGeek No, I will not fix your computer. http://thinkgeek.com/sf _____________________________________________________________________ Ltsp-discuss mailing list. To un-subscribe, or change prefs, goto: https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/ltsp-discuss For additional LTSP help, try #ltsp channel on irc.openprojects.net
