User guide

IB0054606-02 A 9-1
9 gPXE
gPXE is an open source (GPL) network bootloader. It provides a direct
replacement for proprietary PXE ROMs. See http://etherboot.org/wiki/index.php
for documentation and general information.
gPXE Setup
At least two machines and a switch are needed (or connect the two machines
back-to-back and run QLogic Fabric Manager on the server).
 A DHCP server
 A boot server or http server (can be the same as the DHCP server)
 A node to be booted
Use a QLE7340 or QLE7342 adapter for the node.
The following software is included with the QLogic OFED+ installation software
package:
 gPXE boot image
 patch for DHCP server
 tool to install gPXE boot image in EPROM of card
 sample gPXE script
Everything that can be done with the proprietary PXE loader over Ethernet, can be
done with the gPXE loader over IB. The gPXE boot code is only a mechanism to
load an initial boot image onto the system. It is up to the downloaded boot image
to do the rest.
For example, the boot image could be:
 A stand-alone memory test program
 A diskless kernel image that mounts its file systems via NFS
Refer to http://www.faqs.org/docs/Linux-HOWTO/Diskless-HOWTO.html