NetBoot is a small MultiBoot-compliant operating system, and example of OSKit use, that provides one service: fast booting of other MultiBoot-compliant operating systems across the network while itself remaining resident in order to regain control after the target OS exits. This avoids going back to the BIOS to boot the next kernel and allows a reboot cycle that is often an order of magnitude faster than normal.
When NetBoot is booted it prompts for the name of an OS to fetch and boot. The booted OS is passed a special command line flag indicating a return address that it can use to return control back to NetBoot upon exiting. Therefore NetBoot could be thought of as a crude batch-processing operating system.
NetBoot is intended to be used as a kernel development tool, not as a mechanism for implementing diskless workstations, although it can conceivably be used either way.
Note: the netboot described here is not to be confused with the FreeBSD netboot EPROM code of the same name. They share some code but perform different functions.
NetBoot is built as a MultiBoot-compliant operating system; therefore to boot it with LILO or the BSD boot program, an appropriate image must be made with mklinuximage or mkbsdimage, respectively (see Section 1.6.2).
NetBoot boots MultiBoot-compliant operating systems such as the example programs that come with the OSKit. If the desired OS to boot needs MultiBoot boot-modules, they and the OS can be combined into one MultiBoot image via the mkmbimage script, or the faster mkmb2 script, included with the OSKit.
NetBoot requires a BOOTP server to be running on the local network in order to obtain the IP address, gateway address, netmask, and hostname of the host it runs on. If no BOOTP server responds when NetBoot is booted, it will ask to retry or exit.
The files that NetBoot fetches and boots must reside in a directory that is NFS exported to the host running NetBoot. In the future, NetBoot may support other protocols such as TFTP.
The OS that NetBoot installs will not know about all memory on the machine. This is because NetBoot stashes itself and some other things at the top of memory and then lies to the booted OS about where the top is. This is to allow the booted OS to return control to NetBoot upon exit; avoiding the time-consuming process of rebooting the machine. There is currently no way to disable this feature.
When NetBoot is booted it will print something like the following:
NetBoot metakernel v2.4
. . . various startup output, driver probes, etc. . .
Type "help" for help.
NetBoot> _
At the NetBoot> prompt one can boot another OS, get help, or quit.
If NetBoot is given a pseudo URL-style name at the prompt it will fetch that file and boot it.
The format of the name is as follows:
hostname:path [args]
Where:
Two args, -h and -f, are handled as toggles. These args are checked for by the default OSKit console startup code and determine if the serial console will be used (-h) and if it runs at 115200 baud (-f). Therefore, if NetBoot was booted with either of these args it will pass them to the booted OS, assuming it wants to use the same console. However, the OS to fetch may be specified with either of these args and they will be removed from the default argument list.
Another arg is placed in the booted OS’s argument string before booting. NetBoot passes a flag of the form “-retaddr hex” to the booted OS so it can return to this address if it wants to return control to NetBoot. This is normally done by the booted OS’s _exit routine.
Typing “help” at the NetBoot prompt will give some basic usage help.
Typing “quit” or “exit” at the NetBoot prompt will make NetBoot exit.