Re: [Etherboot-developers] using gpxe without dhcp

[email protected] wrote:
>> The project is called the Etherboot Project.
>> Its products are Etherboot (legacy) and gPXE (new).
>> 	-hpa

> Hi,
> thank you for your explanation.
> 
> I'm not native english speaking, so means legacy not actively maintained
> anymore? I tried to get the source for etherboot 5.4.3, but the link:
>  " Source code for Etherboot ROMs is available at   
>    http://www.etherboot.org/distribution.html"
> failed.

This is my fault.  http://rom-o-matic.net/ has some stale links.  The 
site was created long before I ever had the idea for gPXE, and because 
the project is called "Etherboot Project", and our main software product 
is called "Etherboot", people expect Etherboot to be what they want.

Etherboot (the software) over the last three years has been re-written 
as gPXE.  gPXE has most of the features of Etherboot, plus a lot more.

There are differences, though, and we need to do a better job helping 
people to transition to gPXE.

I will try to explain what is going on:

> I was doing some more research:
> - etherboot 5.4.3 had static dhcp options

Yes, Etherboot does have support for static ip addresses.  gPXE does as 
well, though right now it is not as easy to configure as it should be.

> - gpxe has no such options

It does.  We need to write up a HowTo for the wiki.  Right now to keep 
gPXE from doing DHCP at all, one needs to edit the source.  A simple fix 
that would conditionally not do dhcp would be pretty easy to do.  A more 
general fix is being considered as well.  We can talk about how to do 
both on the list.

> - in a vmware environment with windows ris server and client in the
>   same subnet, a client started with a rom-o-matic generated boot-iso
>   (only setting nic to pcnet32, rest left unchanged):
>   - etherboot 5.4.3: failed to recieve a dhcp lease
>   - gpxe 0.9.3: started well and presented the ris menu

gPXE is in general more up-to-date.  I'm pretty sure RIS is known to 
work, though we don't seem to have a RIS HowTo page.  There is an old 
Etherboot page, but it is not up to date:

    http://etherboot.org/wiki/msris

I'm pretty sure RIS works with gPXE though.  We can figure out how.

> Are my first two conclusions right?

gPXE can do static ip addresses, but it is not currently easy to turn 
say that DHCP should not be done on startup.  We should make it easy to 
do that.

> What am i doing wrong with the etherboot-image from rom-o-matic that i failed recieving a dhcp lease from a windows dhcp server?
> I used wireshark and saw, the windows server is offering an ip address.

I'm not sure;  If the Windows server does not offer a filename, 
Etherboot will ignore the DHCPOFFER, since it wants the name of a file 
to boot from.

> Is there a chance for incorporating the static dhcp options parts from etherboot 5.4.3 in gpxe?

Yes, that is being done, and we can help you make it work.  I *know* we 
talked about RIS, and wish I could find the reference.  Does anybody 
have emails from that?

> Thanks in Advance
> Sandy

You're welcome.  Nice to meet you.  We'll help you figure this out.  I 
think it might be better to have this discussion on the 
Etherboot-Discuss list, because I'm sure a lot more people would be 
interested.




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