Revision as of 12:42, 5 June 2014

Overview of a NetBoot sequence

1. Client broadcasts a DHCPDISCOVER message.

2. The DHCP server responds with:

3. The client sends a TFTP request to "next-server", asking to retrieve the PXE filename.

4. The TFTP server responds and sends filename to client.

5. Many things here:

The client executes filename, which is in PXE format.
The PXE menu will be display so the user can choose which kernel to load
Then PXE loads the kernel.
When the kernel executes, the root file system specified by root-path is mounted. If it's a diskless workstation then the client distribution will be mounted in NFS mode.

The following picture describes the same thing as before in the sequential order:

Note that you have to prepare the image before being able to boot on it. ^^

As you can see on the previous picture, a DHCP server + TFTP server are mandatory.

It's also good to have a DNS server to use names instead of IP @.

@@ Line 22: / Line 22: @@
 * Then PXE loads the kernel.
 * When the kernel executes, the root file system specified by root-path is mounted. If it's a diskless workstation then the client distribution will be mounted in NFS mode.
+=Diskless NetBoot=
+The following picture describes the same thing as before in the sequential order:
+[[File:NetBoot sequence principle.png|none|PXE principle]]
+Note that you have to prepare the image before being able to boot on it. ^^