Nilo

[ needs to be updated ]

NILO has a new home! The web site and CVS repository for NILO is now hosted at Sourceforge, a service of VA Linux. The new link for NILO is here.

NILO is the Network Interface Loader. NILO will boot Linux, FreeBSD, Windows 95/98/NT4 and support the Intel PXE standard, and is suitable for burning into ROM. It is an evolution of the previous Etherboot and Netboot projects, and was authored by Ken Yap, until Rob Savoye took over active development..

There is a browsable CVS source tree available. There is also read-only anonymous access to the CVS repository, and write permission can be gotten by contacting the nilo maintainer. Directions for using remote CVS are here. You can download a snapshot. There is also a mailing list for developers. Info on that is available here.

I've recently started writing a detailed new architecture document for Nilo. That doc (very much a daily work in progress) is at this location The original (now slightly out of date) documentation is currently part of the new doc, but starts here I've also collected all the relevant RFCs.

Several other documents have shaped the design of NILO. The largest one is the Intel PXE specification, available from Intel at their developers site. I also have local copies of the Etherboot specification, the Netboot specification, and the Multiboot specification.

Needed Software

OsKit: The OSKit is a framework and a set of 30 component libraries oriented to operating systems. By providing in a modular way not only most of the infrastructure "grunge" needed by an OS, but also many higher-level components, the OSKit's goal is to lower the barrier to entry to OS R&D and to lower its costs. The OSKit makes it vastly easier to create a new OS, port an existing OS to the x86 (or in the future, to other architectures supported by the OSkit), or enhance an OS to support a wider range of devices, file system formats, executable formats, or network services. The OSKit also works well for constructing OS-related programs, such as boot loaders or OS-level servers atop a microkernel.
DHCPD: The Internet Software Consortium (ISC) is a nonprofit corporation dedicated to developing and maintaining production quality Open Source reference implementations of core Internet protocols. ISC efforts are supported by the donations of generous sponsors, and by revenue from support contracts and other client services.
The DHCP server, client and relay agent are provided both as reference implementations of the protocol and as working, fully-featured sample implementations. Both the client and the server provide functionality that, while not strictly required by the protocol, is very useful in practice. The DHCP server also makes allowances for non-compliant clients which one might still like to support.

Related Sites

Sponsors: The non-profit NLnet Foundation originated in 1989, but incorporates networking activities which go back as early as 1982. The foundation (in Dutch called "Stichting NLnet" or shortly "NLnet") has played a major role in raising the so-called pan-European "UNIX" Network and the commercial and public Internet network provision in Holland.
Nilo: This is the original Nilo web site.
Etherboot: Etherboot is a free software package for booting x86 PCs over a network. In principle this could be any network technology that TCP/IP runs on that supports broadcasting. In practice, the bandwidth required means it's only practical over LANs and some WANs. Etherboot is useful for booting PCs diskless.
Netboot: With the Netboot package you can boot a computer with an Intel processor via an IP network without accessing a harddisk or diskette.
SYSLINUX: Pxelinux is PXE support for a Linux kernel. Where NILO is oriented towards being s PXE boot ROM, Pxelinux (part of SYSLINUX) is designd to be linked into a linux kernel so it will boot using a PXE boot ROM, and ultimately NILO.
Grub: GRUB is an attempt to produce a bootloader for IBM PC-compatible machines that has both the capability to be friendly to beginning or otherwise non-technically interested users and the flexibility to help experts in diverse environments. It is currently most useful for users of at least one of the various free UNIX-like operating systems, though it can be used with most any PC operating system.
Remote Boot Howto: This document describes how to set up a very robust and secure server-based configuration for a cluster of PCs, allowing each client to choose at boot-time which operating system to run. The key of this configuration is a bootprom based program, which let the user choose at boot time one of several boot images.
Bootix PXE Bootrom: Bootix used to be Incom, authors of a commercial PXE boot ROM implementation. Bootix has developed a wide range of special-purpose products concentrating on LAN and WAN technology for large internal networks.
Bpbatch: BpBatch is a versatile remote-boot processor, that can be downloaded for free from the Web. It can do a large variety of operations on a computer at boot-time, before any operating system starts. Operations performed by BpBatch ranges from partitioning hard disk to authenticating users, including a graphical interface. The main feature of BpBatch is the partition cloning facility, which let you create an image of a computer's hard disk partition and then distribute and install this image on a cluster of PC.