Just wondering if anyone has built a scaled-down version of the Network Bootdisk for use in a PXE (or BootP) environment?
Basically, boot.. grab image, auto-detect NIC and run a command (in this instance a ghost command to connect to multicast server).
This would be similar to the RIS netboot image, and I'd use that as a template, but I can't figure out how to hack the RIS boot file.
Any ideas on either topic would be appreciated. Thanks.
Full Version: Pxe Boot Image
do you already have an UNDI driver? it's the Universal Network Driver Interface, basicly a generic NDIS2 driver which loads on top of PXE and thus is not dependent on the actual Network card in your pc.
Microsoft should have it for download somewhere, as well as 3Com or Intel.
I've had PXE working, but without any network stack loaded on my boot image. Basically, a 1.44MB image was downloaded and PartitionMagic (or DriveImage, or virusscanner, or whatever) was started.
I would have tested this under Vmware, but I can't get the correct settings for the PCNTND driver (AMD PCnet) that they emulate.
Bart's disk works, but on my network it does not connect to a server(-name), but PINGING IP's is possible..
so the network disk is a kind of mystery to me.. however, I did manage to improve memory management (and thus be able to load more drivers or programs which need more DOS memory.) by replacing components of the diskette. It also saved quite a bit of diskspace because I could compress the replacement drivers/programs (using UPX - the executable program compressor, upx.sf.net)
create a Ghost bootdisk(-image), setup a PXE server (see PXElinux section at syslinux.zytor.org), and set client to boot from LAN.
Place the bootdisk image in correct directory of the TFTP/PXE server, et voila!
Microsoft should have it for download somewhere, as well as 3Com or Intel.
I've had PXE working, but without any network stack loaded on my boot image. Basically, a 1.44MB image was downloaded and PartitionMagic (or DriveImage, or virusscanner, or whatever) was started.
I would have tested this under Vmware, but I can't get the correct settings for the PCNTND driver (AMD PCnet) that they emulate.
Bart's disk works, but on my network it does not connect to a server(-name), but PINGING IP's is possible..
so the network disk is a kind of mystery to me.. however, I did manage to improve memory management (and thus be able to load more drivers or programs which need more DOS memory.) by replacing components of the diskette. It also saved quite a bit of diskspace because I could compress the replacement drivers/programs (using UPX - the executable program compressor, upx.sf.net)
create a Ghost bootdisk(-image), setup a PXE server (see PXElinux section at syslinux.zytor.org), and set client to boot from LAN.
Place the bootdisk image in correct directory of the TFTP/PXE server, et voila!
I Use 3com Network Boot Services At Work To Send The Corpnet.img To All My PXE Machines and it works great, sometimes ghost hangs when loading due to memory issues i think. But on whole it is so brilliant and simple, no need to use disk again.
How have you got it working.... I can get as far as the client choosing from a menu, but appears to stop at "Transferring image file.." The boot image never appears to reach the client, and the 3Com PXE Server timeouts the client out (have tried up to 60s timeout)
QUOTE (JHithersay @ Jun 10 2005, 11:40 AM)
I Use 3com Network Boot Services At Work To Send The Corpnet.img To All My PXE Machines and it works great, sometimes ghost hangs when loading due to memory issues i think. But on whole it is so brilliant and simple, no need to use disk again.
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