gPXE: The latest in net-booting

[Billy Crook]

This came through on a Google Tech Talks feed, and I thought it was a
good watch.  If you've ever booted GNU\Linux over a network, you
probably used PXELINUX (cousin to SYSLINUX, the fat32 floppy boot
loader, and ISOLINUX used on most if not all bootable install cds) or
Etherboot.  Those two projects now work closely together, and they're
adding capability to load kernels and initrds over *arbitrary http
URLS* instead of just local tftp servers.  I've been using pxelinux
for some time to install GNU\Linux or to boot 'live' network distros
without any physical media.  It's handy.

Pxelinux' use of TFTP is OK, but they explain in their talk why it's
not ideal, and specifically how the addition of the TCP stack's flow
control, and HTTP's script-ability make things more interesting.
Imagine your bootloader's config file being dynamically generated on
the server at boot time....

You can watch the video on youtube here:
http://youtube.com/?v=GofOqhO6VVM

Or download the .flv file, which VLC can play fullscreen, without ads, from:
http://bcrook.com/gPXE.flv

If I figure out how to convert it to Ogg Theora I'll post it to:
http://bcrook.com/gPXE.ogg

You can subscribe to all Google Tech Talks at:
http://www.youtube.com/rss/user/googletechtalks/videos.rss