Re: Help on PXE & loading M$

[Hans-Christian Armingeon]

On Tuesday 05 June 2001 19:34, David Coulthart wrote:
> Hello,
>
> I work for the IS department at Columbia University & I am currently
> conducting preliminary research on setting up our machines on campus to
> use PXE for loading a boot image.  I should probably start with what our
> current setup is & then describe what we would like to change.  The
> current setup is as follows:
>
> We have developed an in-house PROM that we have had burned and installed
> onto 3Com 3c509B 10MB/s ISA network cards.  These cards are installed on
> the computers in our labs.  They disable booting from the floppy drive
> (for security purposes) and then provide a simple text menu with ~5
> options.  The default option is to boot Windows NT (soon to be Windows
> 2000) from the local hard drive.  We also provide options however to load
> images from the server (using TFTP) for such things as ghosting and
> diagnosing the machine.
>
> Our new machines, however, are coming with 3Com 3c905C 100 MB/s cards that
> we would like to use for the faster network performance.  However, this
> requires an overhaul of our current PROM & we are searching for a better
> solution than having to hack together a working PROM & install chips in
> all of the new machines.  That's why we are looking in to using PXE &
> during my research, GRUB turned up as a possible solution.
In my opinion, the 3Com 3c905C has a menu in that you can select BOOTP, PXE, 
DHCP, ... . I have some of them, but I am currently not booting over the net 
with them, but I booted some other cards.
>
> I figured posting my requirements to the developer list & asking for input
> would be the next best step in the process.  If people could provide
> information on how feasible a solution would be using GRUB (or provide
> information about other solutions to consider--I realize GNU GRUB is in
> alpha currently & as an IS department we do need a stable solution,
> although we are willing to contribute some time to help the project if we
> could get a stable solution for our problem from it), it would be greatly
> appreciated.
>
> Also, what exactly is needed to get GRUB to boot up Windows (NT/2000).  I
> find mention of the need for a chain-loader, but do not find anything more
> specific about where to obtain a chain-loader.
well, at the command prompt a
chainloader (hd0,0)+1
boot
should do it. hd0,0 refers to the hd/partition where NT is installed on.
>
>
> Thank you for your help and if more information about our setup/needs,
> please feel free to contact me.
Could you please send me a full set of tools you used to boot from the 
network? Thanks.
I booted over the net successful under a certain circumstances:
- Loading a 2.2.x or 2.4.x kernel and let the kernel determine the rest
- netboot
- etherboot
I usually did all over bootp or dhcp.
I have also some experience that I would like to improve by sharing it with 
some other doing the same.
Have you any experience with pxelinux?
I use the pxe daemon 1.2 from  http://www.kano.org.uk/projects/pxe/.
I struggled with the intel pxe daemon.
I took a dhcpd v3.0betaX too, and I got it working, but I wasn't able to 
understand my config-file 100%. Well, I understood the most but,...

Have you any experience with dhcpd under Windows NT? Or booting any Windows 
over the Network? Or using a NT server as a boot server? Well, I prefer Linux 
;-), but I have to set up an NT environment in soon...
>
>
> Thank you,
>
> David Coulthart
> address@hidden
>
Johnny