R ECENT A DVANCES IN N ETWORK B OOTING Marty Connor Project Leader, - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

R ECENT A DVANCES IN N ETWORK B OOTING Marty Connor Project Leader, Etherboot Project LinuxCon North America, Boston 11 August 2010 0

Topics http://etherboot.org/ • Welcome • Overview and History • How It Works • Demonstra5ons • Development of gPXE • More Demonstra5ons Q & A throughout presenta5on 1

http://etherboot.org/  Overview and History of Network BooKng 2

Network Boo5ng http://etherboot.org/ One of IT’s best kept secrets • Holy Grail: Get hard drives out of desktop computers • Centralized administraKon: Used by sysadmins for remote system installs, diagnosis, and repairs • Reduces distributed hardware failure Many Uses • Used to boot larger arrays of machines (super computers, labs, POS/point‐of‐sale) • Enables “thin client” compuKng • Virtualizes storage / operaKng system choice 3

A Brief History of Network Boo5ng http://etherboot.org/ 1993 – Jamie Honan publishes “Network Boot Image Proposal” 1995 – Markus Gutschke releases Etherboot based on NBI proposal 1990 1999 1997 – Intel publishes spec for PXE (Pre-boot eXecution Environment) as part of “Wired for Management” specification 1999 – H. Peter Anvin releases pxelinux.0 4

A Brief History of Network Boo5ng (continued) http://etherboot.org/ 2000 – Marty Connor creates http://rom-o-matic.net/ 2004 – Michael Brown adds PXE support to Etherboot 2005 – Marty and Michael create gPXE, a FOSS implementation of PXE 2000 2010 2007 – Michael adds SAN booting to gPXE 2010 – ( you’ll see ;-) ) 5

Some Places gPXE is Used http://etherboot.org/ • LTSP (Linux Terminal Server Project)  Computer labs in schools and universiKes  Libraries • Point of Sale applicaKons (restaurants, KckeKng) • Supercomputer clusters • Thin Client applicaKons • Embedded systems • System diagnosis and maintenance tools 6

http://etherboot.org/  How Network BooKng Works 7

Basic Network Boo5ng Steps http://etherboot.org/ 1. Client asks for IP config and network booKng informaKon via DHCP 2. DHCP Server provides necessary booKng parameters to client 3. Client fetches executable image from server with TFTP 4. Client executes fetched image 8

Network Boo5ng Methods http://etherboot.org/ • PXE BooKng  Fetches files from remote server  Uses TFTP, HTTP to fetch files • SAN BooKng  Treats remote server volume as raw disk volume  Uses SAN protocol such as iSCSI or AoE • Most popular network booKng methods  TFTP of PXELINUX  HTTP of Linux kernel  iSCSI boot of Linux and Windows 9

LAN for this Tutorial http://etherboot.org/ 10

http://etherboot.org/  Development of gPXE 11

Why PXE has not evolved http://etherboot.org/ • Business  Intel Wired for Management (WfM) iniKaKve halted  Microsoe discouraged network booKng of operaKng systems (per‐seat licensing model)  Lack of incenKve for hardware and soeware companies • Technical  Network speed / technology limitaKons  HTTP, iSCSI, and other TCP/IP‐based protocols require a more complicated network stack implementaKon • Needs significant flash storage space • Difficult to implement 12

Features: gPXE versus PXE http://etherboot.org/ Feature Comparison PXE gPXE TFTP   DHCP   DNS —  HTTP —  iSCSI —  Infiniband —  AoE —  EFI ?  13

Demonstra5ons http://etherboot.org/ • ROM Burning • Using the gPXE • Building gPXE on Linux command Line command line • hlp://boot.kernel.org/ • ROM‐o‐maKc.net • hlp://netboot.me/ • Network BooKng • Wireshark network  LTSP debugging  Linux • Serial Debugging  Tom’s Root Boot • Fedora • Ubuntu  DOS/Windows 14

Network Boo5ng Developments http://etherboot.org/ And one more thing… 15

Addi5onal Resources http://etherboot.org/ Find out about gPXE and the Etherboot project hlp://etherboot.org/ Create gPXE ROM images with web interface hlp://rom‐o‐maKc.net/ Etherboot Project and gPXE videos hlp://etherboot.org/wiki/talks Main Etherboot Project IRC channel #etherboot on irc.freenode.net Etherboot project mailing lists hlp://etherboot.org/mailman/lisKnfo General discussion of gPXE and other hlp://etherboot.org/mailman/lisKnfo/gpxe network booKng topics Discussion of gPXE development and hlp://etherboot.org/mailman/lisKnfo/gpxe‐ implementaKon topics devel Videos and PresentaKons hlp://etherboot.org/wiki/talks 16