PXEBOOT(8) FreeBSD System Manager's Manual PXEBOOT(8)
NAME
pxeboot - Preboot Execution Environment (PXE) bootloader
DESCRIPTION
The pxeboot bootloader is a modified version of the system third-stage
bootstrap loader(8) configured to run under Intel's Preboot Execution
Environment (PXE) system. PXE is a form of smart boot ROM, built into
Intel EtherExpress Pro/100 and 3Com 3c905c Ethernet cards, and Ethernet-
equipped Intel motherboards. PXE supports DHCP configuration and
provides low-level NIC access services.
The DHCP client will set a DHCP user class named FreeBSD to allow
flexible configuration of the DHCP server.
The pxeboot bootloader retrieves the kernel, modules, and other files
either via NFS over UDP or by TFTP, selectable through compile-time
options. In combination with a memory file system image or NFS-mounted
root file system, pxeboot allows for easy, EEPROM-burner free
construction of diskless machines.
The pxeboot binary is loaded just like any other boot file, by specifying
it in the DHCP server's configuration file. Below is a sample
configuration for the ISC DHCP v3 server:
option domain-name "example.com";
option routers 10.0.0.1;
option subnet-mask 255.255.255.0;
option broadcast-address 10.0.0.255;
option domain-name-servers 10.0.0.1;
server-name "DHCPserver";
server-identifier 10.0.0.1;
next-server 10.0.0.1;
default-lease-time 120;
max-lease-time 120;
subnet 10.0.0.0 netmask 255.255.255.0 {
filename "pxeboot";
range 10.0.0.10 10.0.0.254;
if exists user-class and option user-class = "FreeBSD" {
option root-path "tftp://10.0.0.1/FreeBSD";
}
}
next-server is the IP address of the next server in the bootstrap
process, i.e. your TFTP server or NFS server. pxeboot recognizes option
root-path directives as the server and path to NFS mount for file
requests, respectively, or the server to make TFTP requests to. Note
that pxeboot expects to fetch /boot/loader.rc from the specified server
before loading any other files.
Valid option root-path syntax is the following
/path path to the root filesystem on the NFS server
ip://path path to the root filesystem on the NFS server ip
nfs://path path to the root filesystem on the NFS server
nfs://ip/path path to the root filesystem on the NFS server ip
tftp://path path to the root filesystem on the TFTP server
tftp://ip/path path to the root filesystem on the TFTP server ip
pxeboot defaults to a conservative 1024 byte NFS data packet size. This
may be changed by setting the nfs.read_size variable in
/boot/loader.conf. Valid values range from 1024 to 16384 bytes.
In all other respects, pxeboot acts just like loader(8).
For further information on Intel's PXE specifications and Wired for
Management (WfM) systems, see
http://www.pix.net/software/pxeboot/archive/pxespec.pdf.
SEE ALSO
loader(8)
HISTORY
The pxeboot bootloader first appeared in FreeBSD 4.1.
AUTHORS
The pxeboot bootloader was written by John Baldwin <
[email protected]> and
Paul Saab <
[email protected]>. This manual page was written by Doug White
<
[email protected]>.
FreeBSD 14.1-RELEASE-p8 February 15, 2021 FreeBSD 14.1-RELEASE-p8