Re: tftp boot for installation
On Wed, Apr 17, 2002 at 09:47:24AM -0700, Andrew Sharp wrote:
> Wolfgang Hottgenroth wrote:
> >
> > Hi,
> >
> > in the Sparc port of Debian, there is an image to be placed on a tftp server
> > ad to be loaded by the machine on which Debian is to be installed via bootp
> > and tftp.
> >
> > Works fine, I've done it multiple times.
> >
> > I wonder if an installation can be performed in a similar way on an i386 PC.
> > Unfortunately there is no such image in the disks-i386 directory, but I suppose
> > if I would know how the tftp boot-and-installation image is built for Sparc
> > I could help myself ... well ... may be I need to come back here to ask more
> > questions.
> >
> > Could someone tell me how this image for Sparc is built or if someone has done
> > it already with a PC?
>
> You would have to have a PC that has the capability of booting from
> the network with that protocol from the bios. More and more this is
> becoming common on newer motherboards. Some only support certain,
> non-compatible protocols, like the novell net boot protocol and such.
> The kernel itself is just built with certain options selected that are
> required for net booting. Check out the source for boot-floppies, I
> think that is where the secrets are buried. I actually did this on a
> laptop from Dell that had a netbooting capable bios quite
> surprisingly. It really wasn't hard to build the right kernel. Just
> make sure you have the right autoconfiguration stuff selected in the
> kernel compile. Did you check to see if there is a netbooting HOWTO?
The most common form of netbooting for PC is PXE. The BIOS/ethernet has
to support it. You don't need a "tftp" image for this like you do on
sparc's. The BIOS just does DHCP to get an IP, loads the PXE boot loader
(part of LILO, IIRC) from tftp, and then it pulls in a config file
(again, over tftp) which tells it what vmlinuz and initrd image to get
(also via tftp).
Ben
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