For the past month or so all the machines that I have ordered and gotten have been coming with bootroms. So for the past few weeks I have been searching for information on how this whole thing works. I know bootroms have been around for as long as netcards but this is my first real experience with them. My journey for information has been long and frustrating with little or no meaty information for public consumption. It seems to me that a few companies want to keep it a secret because it can be very valuable to the mainstream corporate market. As I work for an educational institution I do not have the funds that are required for most of the mainstream products available. So my search has been for a GNU solution. Thanks to David Clerc [ David.Clerc@cui.unige.ch] and this mailing list I have been getting closer and closer to being able to remotely boot my new machines. Today I have stumbled upon probably the most helpful information to date -- http://developer.intel.com/ial/WfM/tools/pxe/index.htm This page outlines the Preboot Execution Environment by Intel for their Wired For Management spec ( http://developer.intel.com/ial/WfM/design/pxedt/pxespec.htm). What these PDF files is about is the future of network based computing. There are many other vendors besides Intel that are picking up the torch and running with it. * Acer * AST * Compaq's WfM information page * Dell's WfM information page * Fujitsu * Gateway * Hewlett-Packard's WfM information page * Hitachi * IBM * Micron's WfM information page * Mitsubishi * Monorail * NEC * Packard-Bell/NEC * Pionex Techonologies * Quantex's WfM information page * SNI * Toshiba * Unisys * Viglen * Vist * ZDS Computer Associates Intl. Unicenter* TNG 2.2 Unicenter TNG Framework 2.2 Hewlett-Packard OpenView* Desktop Administrator 4.01 OpenView Network Node Manager for NT 5.02 Intel LANDeskŪ Client Manager LANDeskŪ Management Suite LANDeskŪ Server Manager Tivoli Systems Inc. NetView Version 5.0a * Lanworks Technologies Inc. ( http://www.lanworks.com/) * InCom GmbH ( http://www.incom.de/) * Intel Manageability Products and Solutions Page * AMD * SMC * Novell * 3Com These pages have lots of good information. * Some other links to good reference material can be found on this page: http://developer.intel.com/ial/WfM/design/bibliog.htm * This page has some good software for bootroms and the demo will even make bootable images for you under NT. http://www.bootware.com/needto.htm * This has alot of speculative information that is a good read http://www.eg3.com/vtc/incom/shead.htm#Heading7 * Outdated and in German but translated with Altavista its still a good read http://www.leu.bw.schule.de/beruf/zpg/kf/zpg18/text7ht.htm * Commercial company that everyone says to go to for support http://www.bootware.com/ * Information about the above http://www.id.dk/comforum/support/files/net/3comboot/readme * Allot of Useful information including RFC's http://www.netsys.com/archives.html * Another company that doesn't update their page http://www.incom.de/index_en.shtml * Good information but a bit outdated http://netsys.syr.edu/micnet/cluster_docs/win95/index.htm * Good info but in Spanish but it has a cool tidbit about changing the registry in 95 to set the computer name from the DNS entry, I believe... http://vitoria.upf.tche.br/~fred/ * How to NFS a root drive on Linux so you can boot from the net http://sunsite.unc.edu/pub/linux/docs/howto/mini/NFS-Root-Client * NE2000 bootstuff http://www.realtime.no/stavanger-datasenter/Drivere/networking/148.htm * RPL info for Novell http://www.realtime.no/stavanger-datasenter/Drivere/networking/CSBRPL.TXT * TCP/IP information about 95...some useful some incorrect http://www-leland.stanford.edu/~llurch/win95netbugs/faq-c.html * Linux DHCP and bootP Information http://www.secretagent.com/networking/dhcp.html * The best NT FAQ and how to install remote boot http://www.ntfaq.com/ntfaq/network.html#network42 * If your on the mailing list you've probably seen this http://www.slug.org.au/etherboot/ and http://www.slug.org.au/etherboot/nilo/ * Remote boot for Linux has info on setting up old bootroms for multi o/s http://cuiwww.unige.ch/info/pc/remote-boot.3/ * Probably the best place to get the most bloated incomplete information http://premium.microsoft.com/msdn/library/?FinishURL=/msdn/library/ * Outdated information but still useful http://www.katedral.se/system/elevsyst/ THIS IS THE FUTURE: http://www.microsoft.com/hwdev/pc98.htm / http://developer.intel.com/design/pc98/ Ok now that I have got that all out of the way I just have to say that some of these links you could have found on your own pretty easily but I included them just to make it easy for reference. >From what I have learned there are several ways of booting a computer remotely. The term is so loosely used I believe it needs a better definition. First there is turning on a computer from a remote location which could be considered remotebooting. Second there is having a computer getting information from a remote source while its booting. Third could be having the computer load the operating system from a remote source to boot. All which could be considered remote booting. If you are unclear on which or what remotebooting type operation you are doing I would recommend reading the above links to gain a clearer picture. My definition of remote booting is a computer that has to have information from a remote computer to be able to boot, no matter if the o/s is on the harddrive or on a remote computer. Now there are several different types of services that can facilitate remote booting. RPL, DHCPD, BOOTP, TFTP, PXE, MTFTP, and others. Each one of these types of services needs a special bootrom. But today bootroms are coming in a multi-flavor package capable of being able to boot from several services or even having code uploaded into the bootrom itself. Many network computers today are able to even insert the code for remotebooting into the computers bios for remote booting. http://www.intel.com/managedpc/elements/index.htm#svcboot That's all I have for now but I plan on putting up a web page soon with other information I have gathered. John Clark (skyman@iastate.edu)
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