On Mon, 15 Nov 2004, bruce wrote:
ok...
i'm confused... i'm going to have to find someone with PXE expertise who can walk me though how this might/can work..
There is not much to get confused about really.
The PXE process is a very cut down DHCP client that simply requests on the wire for something to give it an IP address.
It also incorporates some code that allows a device to pass it an image of say - a boot floppy, in order to use this image as a boot device as if it were a real disk.
When yo utalk about secuirty issues, then yes, there are issues - if someone takes a PXE enabled device to another network, sets up their own DHCP server, gies the PXE device an IP and a boot image they can potentially boot the device. but it tends to be a physical "move to another network" which no doubt you would tend to notice.
The PXE process is incredibly simple - it is quite litterally that, what you can do with it however can be quite complex as there are a number of combinations of this process that allow for things such as automated machine rebuilds, diskless workstations, jumpstart/kickstart installations etc etc
Really, your best bet is to read some of the links from the google search and then play with it a little - as Ed said, you only need a dhcp server and to download some of the pxe stuff for linux to get it all going - if you have more specific questions after playing a bit then there are people here that can help but a generic question such as "whats this pxe stuff and how does it work" is probably a little outside the charter of this mailing list.
PS: a basic understanding of the DHCP process would also help, it may pay to see if you can find something on that as well if you are uncertain what a MAC address is or how PC's get an IP from a DHCP server.
(http://www.intranetjournal.com/articles/200004/im_dhcpb.html is a reasonable explanation)
-- Steve.
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