windows xp diskless lan boot using AoE pxe

ATA-over-Ethernet diskless boot of Microsoft windows XP sp3 on a standard computer 100mbps lan. running initial gPXE on a small usb bar, then access disk hosted by a Linux Debian based box. WinAoE driver is required.
1000mbps network link is recommended to get the best possible performances. this low level fast and easy-to-use protocol allow seamless workstation behavior.

as AoE ,as it's describe itself, is just over ethernet protocol, boot through a routed network is not possible. you have to be on the same physical network. consider using iSCSI for IP aware boot.

note that network card's rom can be permanently updated with gpxe to get rid of the usb stick if you know exactly what you are doing. improper flash can easily result in a permanent broken mainboard/nic. for the moment i stick to the stick.

everything is on etherboot.org

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• boot
• windows
• xp
• network
• lan
• diskless
• pxe
• gpxe
• aoe

[Osni01]

Nice video pierrele, thanks!

I was thinking about using gpxe here with 6 clients, but I guess the performance will be sluggish on a 100mbps network, right?

Also, it would be nice to use just one universal image for the clients...

[pierrele]

@Osni01 100mbps could still be good enough to do the job, depends on what you expect. once the OS and usual programs are loaded, network activity is very low. and yes an image file is exclusive per workstation, you can't share it across computers. you won't/can't plug a single hard drive to multiple workstation at a time right?

[thebigbigdaddy]

what do you do about windows liscences?

[pierrele]

@thebigbigdaddy you obviously need a valid license per running desktop. the only thing that change is that the hard drive is not physically present in the desktop.

[thenikroks]

ok but how do i make a pxe server so that clients can connect to it?

[pierrele]

@thenikroks run vblade

[ralgith]

Its time for a video update. gPXE is a dead project and iPXE is the replacement. ipxe(DOT)org

Not to mention you don't really explain how to do it. You just show off that you've done it.

[Noname7401]

great can i use your sever any time : )

[thebigbigdaddy]

Honestly, I'm still confused on how you made all this work, and the website provided gives a lot of info, but no steps. Did you use a special Network card and besides this, what sort of server is it pulling the information from? please advise.

[maxchock]

Can I assign different computer name to different PC? or I have to create different image for different PC?

Thanks.

[jayavictordaniel]

its nice can tell me how can u create boot image file in other pc ,

[medonoy]

i saw you use a flash drive, why? is it to store gpxe file or what?

do we need to put that flash drive when going to boot a windows?

[smartbyte]

Can you please boot the system enabling bootlog.txt and send me that file? I have the nforce problem with mine, and need to know which drivers need to be loaded before and after aoe32.sys. Thanks.

[Osni01]

@pierrele Hmmm so maybe I can make a copy of the disc file for each client and update vblade/gpxe configuration.

I was looking for an alternative where the client would copy the entire disc image and boot it locally (this would happen only when our system is updated, every 1 or 2 weeks). Do you have any suggestions?

Right now I'm using a Norton Ghost image on a shared folder, and a more straight-forward way of doing this would be nice.

Thanks again.