index-berlios.html

   1 <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN">
   2 <html>
   3 <head>
   4 <meta name="generator" content=
   5 "HTML Tidy for Linux/x86 (vers 1st April 2002), see www.w3.org">
   6 <title>Welcome to EtherBoot.org</title>
   7 <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content=
   8 "text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">
   9 <link rel=StyleSheet href="style.css" type="text/css"/>
  10 </head>
  11 <body>
  12 <table summary="welcome" width="95%" border="0" cellspacing="0"
  13 cellpadding="3" align="center">
  14 <tr bgcolor="#0F3161">
  15 <td width="278" bgcolor="#0F3161" valign="bottom">
  16 <h2 class="c1">Welcome to the</h2>
  17 </td>
  18 <td bgcolor="#0F3161">
  19 </td>
  20 <td></td>
  21 </tr>
  22
  23 <tr>
  24 <td bgcolor="#BFCBD9">
  25 <div class="c2">EtherBoot Project</div>
  26 </td>
  27 <td align="middle">
  28 <div class="c2">
  29 <a href="http://osdir.com/Article198.phtml"><img src=
  30 "http://www.osdir.com/images/2003osdirwinnerbadge.gif" width=
  31 "125" height="65" border="0" alt="OSDir 2003 Winner Badge"></a>
  32 </div>
  33 </td>
  34 <td bgcolor="#BFCBD9">
  35 <div class="c4"><a href="index.html" class="c3"><img src=
  36 "doc/html/images/etherboot_logo.png" alt="Etherboot logo" width=
  37 "125" height="54" border="0"></a></div>
  38 </td>
  39 </tr>
  40 </table>
  41
  42 <table summary="index" width="95%" border="0" cellspacing="0"
  43 cellpadding="0" align="center">
  44 <tr>
  45 <td bgcolor="#0F3161" width="165" height="56" valign="top">
  46 <table summary="index.html" width="100%" border="0" cellspacing=
  47 "10" cellpadding="0" align="right">
  48 <tr>
  49 <td height="45">
  50 <div class="c4"><a href="index.html" class=
  51 "c5"><b>Home</b></a></div>
  52 </td>
  53 </tr>
  54
  55 <tr>
  56 <td height="45">
  57 <div class="c4"><a href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/etherboot" class=
  58 "c3">Sourceforge project home</a></div>
  59 </td>
  60 </tr>
  61
  62 <tr>
  63 <td height="45">
  64 <div class="c4"><a href="http://developer.berlios.de/projects/etherboot" class=
  65 "c3">Berlios project mirror</a></div>
  66 </td>
  67 </tr>
  68
  69 <tr>
  70 <td height="45">
  71 <div class="c4"><a href="http://sourceforge.net/news/?group_id=4233" class=
  72 "c3">News</a></div>
  73 </td>
  74 </tr>
  75
  76 <tr>
  77 <td height="45">
  78 <div class="c4"><a href="doc/html/documentation.html" class=
  79 "c3">Documentation</a></div>
  80 </td>
  81 </tr>
  82
  83 <tr>
  84 <td height="45">
  85 <div class="c4"><a href="http://wiki.etherboot.org" class=
  86 "c3">Wiki</a></div>
  87 </td>
  88 </tr>
  89
  90 <tr>
  91 <td height="45">
  92 <div class="c4"><a href="http://rom-o-matic.net/" class=
  93 "c3">Make ROMs</a></div>
  94 </td>
  95 </tr>
  96
  97 <tr>
  98 <td height="45">
  99 <div class="c4"><a href="http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=4233" class=
 100 "c3">Download source from Sourceforge</a></div>
 101 </td>
 102 </tr>
 103
 104 <tr>
 105 <td height="45">
 106 <div class="c4"><a href="http://etherboot.berlios.de/dist/" class=
 107 "c3">Download source from Berlios (Germany)</a></div>
 108 </td>
 109 </tr>
 110
 111 <tr>
 112 <td height="45">
 113 <div class="c4"><a href="doc/html/contributing.html" class=
 114 "c3">Volunteering</a></div>
 115 </td>
 116 </tr>
 117
 118 <tr>
 119 <td height="45">
 120 <div class="c4"><a href="http://sourceforge.net/mail/?group_id=4233" class=
 121 "c3">Mailing Lists</a></div>
 122 </td>
 123 </tr>
 124
 125 <tr>
 126 <td height="45">
 127 <div class="c4"><a href=
 128 "http://etherboot.sourceforge.net/relatedlinks.html" class=
 129 "c3">Related Links</a></div>
 130 </td>
 131 </tr>
 132
 133 <tr>
 134 <td height="45">
 135 <div class="c4"><a href=
 136 "http://etherboot.sourceforge.net/clinks.html" class=
 137 "c3">Commercial Links</a></div>
 138 </td>
 139 </tr>
 140 </table>
 141 </td>
 142 <td width="700" height="56" bgcolor="#FFFFFF" valign="top" align=
 143 "left">
 144 <blockquote>
 145 <h2 class="c6">About EtherBoot</h2>
 146
 147 <p class="c7">Etherboot is a software package for creating ROM
 148 images that can download code over an Ethernet network to be
 149 executed on an x86 computer. Many network adapters have a socket
 150 where a ROM chip can be installed. Etherboot is code that can be
 151 put in such a ROM. Etherboot is normally used for for booting PCs
 152 diskless. This is useful in various situations, for example:</p>
 153
 154 <ul class="c11">
 155 <li>An X-terminal.</li>
 156
 157 <li>Clusters of compute servers.</li>
 158
 159 <li>Routers.</li>
 160
 161 <li>Various kinds of remote servers, e.g. a tape drive server that
 162 can be accessed with the RMT protocol.</li>
 163
 164 <li>Machines doing tasks in environments unfriendly to disks.</li>
 165
 166 <li>A user platform where remote partitions are mounted over the
 167 network and you are willing to accept the lower speed compared to
 168 disk.</li>
 169
 170 <li>Maintaining software for a cluster of equally configured
 171 workstations centrally.</li>
 172 </ul>
 173
 174 <p class="c7">Etherboot can boot computers faster than from a disk
 175 because there are no delays in spinning up disks, etc. A moment's
 176 calculation will show that even with a 10Mbit Ethernet, sending a
 177 500kB kernel will take only a couple of seconds typically. With
 178 100Mbit Ethernet it gets even better.</p>
 179
 180 <p class="c7">Compared to booting from solid-state devices, e.g.
 181 Flash disks, Etherboot has the advantage of centralising software
 182 adminstration, the tradeoff being the dependence on a server. This
 183 can be partly alleviated by providing redundant servers.</p>
 184
 185 <p class="c7">Etherboot can work with RAM disks, NFS filesystems,
 186 or even local disks, if desired. It's a component technology and
 187 can be combined with other technologies to do things the way you
 188 want.</p>
 189
 190 <p class="c7">Etherboot is usually used to load Linux, FreeBSD or
 191 DOS. However the protocol and boot file formats are general, so
 192 there is no reason why it could not be used to load arbitrary
 193 images to a PC, including other OSes.</p>
 194
 195 <p class="c7">Etherboot is Open Source under the GNU General Public
 196 License Version 2 (GPL2).</p>
 197
 198 <p class="c7">The components needed by Etherboot are</p>
 199
 200 <ul class="c11">
 201 <li>A bootstrap loader, usually in an EPROM on a network card, or
 202 installed in the flash BIOS, but could be put anywhere in the
 203 address space the BIOS probes in. For testing this could be put on
 204 a floppy disk or a hard disk partition. Some configurations may
 205 even be always run from a floppy disk (e.g. temporary testing
 206 setups or pedagogic uses).</li>
 207
 208 <li>A DHCP or bootp server, for returning an IP address and other
 209 information when sent a MAC (Ethernet card) address.</li>
 210
 211 <li>A tftp server, for sending the kernel images and other files
 212 required in the boot process. Alternatively, Etherboot can boot
 213 from an NFS mount.</li>
 214
 215 <li>A Linux or FreeBSD kernel.</li>
 216
 217 <li>Optionally, a NFS server, for providing the disk partitions
 218 that will be mounted if Linux or FreeBSD is being booted.</li>
 219
 220 <li>Optionally, a RAM disk contained in the loaded image. This can
 221 be the initial RAM disk if desired.</li>
 222
 223 <li>Software tools for building the download image, and tools for
 224 debugging.</li>
 225 </ul>
 226 </blockquote>
 227
 228 </td>
 229 <td width="12" height="56" bgcolor="#0F3161"></td>
 230 </tr>
 231 </table>
 232
 233 <table summary="pad" width="95%" border="0" cellspacing="0"
 234 cellpadding="0" align="center">
 235 <tr>
 236 <td height="5" bgcolor="#BFCBD9">&nbsp;</td>
 237 </tr>
 238 </table>
 239
 240 <table summary="sponsor" width="95%" border="0" cellspacing="3"
 241 cellpadding="0" align="center" bgcolor="#0F3161">
 242 <tr>
 243 <td valign="middle" width="81">
 244 <div class="c10">Hosted by</div>
 245 </td>
 246 <td valign="middle" width="610"><a href="http://developer.berlios.de"><img
 247 src=
 248 "http://developer.berlios.de/sflogo.php?group_id=190&amp;type=1"
 249 width="118" height="52" border="0" alt="BerliOS Logo"></a> </td>
 250 </tr>
 251 </table>
 252 </body>
 253 </html>
 254