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Re: status of grub netboot in GRUB2
From: |
Turner, Ian |
Subject: |
Re: status of grub netboot in GRUB2 |
Date: |
Wed, 1 Sep 2010 16:40:42 -0400 |
John,
What happens when you load GRUB from media and then load the pxe module? Do you
get access to the PXE filesystem? I think you can even specify the tftp server
to use by setting some variables.
--Ian
(Apologies for the HTML mail - this mail client doesn't support composing plain
text messages)
----- Original Message -----
From: address@hidden <address@hidden>
To: grub-devel maillist <address@hidden>
Sent: Wed Sep 01 11:12:26 2010
Subject: Re: status of grub netboot in GRUB2
Thanks for the numerous replies. Some comments interspersed and one question
at the end.
Lennart Sorensen wrote:
| What is the point of having a bootloader that needs to sit on a disk on
| a box, when then network boots? With PXE and the like you don't need
| any disk and means you are really net booting.
There are various situations where PXE is not an answer. Examples -
no PXE in the NIC
The system BIOS can't or won't communicate with my tftp network server -
e.g. maybe this is an Apple IMac which refuses to tftp to my server
and other posters mentioned other reasons.
Basically, I am hoping for what GRUB1 offered -
fetch a linux kernel over the network using tftp under control of GRUB.
Ian Turner wrote:
| But I suspect you can boot GRUB from physical media
| and then still activate the PXE module afterwards.
...
| Netboot works in grub2, but only using the PXE protocol.
Very interesting - but how? see my question below.
Vladimir Serbinenko wrote:
| Manoelo Abranches is working on this feature:
| http://bzr.savannah.gnu.org/r/grub/people/mrabran/grub_net/
I looked and don't see any content anywhere under that page
or the neighbouring http://bzr.savannah.gnu.org/r/grub/people/phcoder/net/.bzr/
Lennart Sorensen wrote:
| Well a neat program for booting over the internet would be gPXE:
| http://boot.kernel.org/
Yes and no. It can fetch a kernel over the network, but it's not GRUB!
- when run in boot program mode, can't be embedded on hard disk (I think),
has to reside on floppy or CDRom
- I think this mode of use was never its primary intention - it's designed
to be
burned into a eeprom and operate automatically - hence ...
- ... really ugly user interface as compared to GRUB
(no command recall, useless help, no completion, etc)
- strange and apparently sometimes unsuccessful method for building a
version with support
for my NIC - I have to go to some site and "order" it, rather than
configure / make etc.
Question: is the current (1.98) netboot/PXE functionality documented
somewhere?
I did try reading the 1.98 info but the node for "Network" is empty -
and it seems nothing there in the .texi. Sorry if this is all covered back in
the archives
but I don't see it or it's out of date.
John
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