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Network booting, shortened netboot, is the process of booting a computer from a network rather than a local drive. This method of booting can be used by routers , diskless workstations and centrally managed computers ( thin clients ) such as public computers at libraries and schools.
No drivers are required, but the system functionality is limited until the operating system kernel and drivers are transferred and started. As a result, once the ROM-based booting has completed it is entirely possible to network boot into an operating system that itself does not have the ability to use the network interface.
A high-level PXE overview. In computing, the Preboot eXecution Environment (PXE; often pronounced as / ˈ p ɪ k s iː / pixie, often called PXE boot (pixie boot), is a specification describing a standardized client–server environment that boots a software assembly, retrieved from a network, on PXE-enabled clients.
Although its basic role was to implement a PXE stack, iPXE can be also used as a network boot manager with limited capabilities for menu-based interaction with end users. iPXE can fetch boot files using multiple network protocols, such as TFTP, NFS, HTTP or FTP. iPXE can act as a boot loader for the Linux kernel, with support for multiboot.
No drivers are required, but the system functionality is limited until the operating system kernel and drivers are transferred and started. As a result, once the ROM-based booting has completed it is entirely possible to network boot into an operating system that itself does not have the ability to use the network interface.
Initially requiring the use of a boot floppy disk to establish the initial network connection, manufacturers of network interfaces later embedded the protocol in the firmware of interface cards as well as system boards with on-board network interfaces, thus allowing direct network booting.
Standard full-size desktop PCs are able to be network-booted in this manner with an add-on network card that includes a Universal Network Device Interface boot ROM. Diskless network booting is commonly a built-in feature of desktop and laptop PCs intended for business use, since it can be used on an otherwise disk-booted standard desktop ...
For DOS remote boot to work, the RPL boot loader is loaded into the client's memory over the network before the operating system starts. Without special precautions the operating system could easily overwrite the RPL code during boot, since the RPL code resides in unallocated memory (typically at the top of the available conventional memory).