Quick Start
Getting started
Download one of the netboot.xyz bootloaders that works best for your situation and start PXE booting your favorite operating system. The bootloaders are precompiled versions of the latest version of iPXE that will allow you to PXE boot into https://boot.netboot.xyz. If you have DHCP it'll automatically attempt to boot from DHCP. If you need to set a static IP address, hit the 'm' key during boot up for the failsafe menu and choose manual network configuration.
You can look at the next section entitled Booting Methods for instructions on how to set up the downloaded bootloader.
If you already have iPXE up and running on the network, you can hit load the netboot.xyz kernel by typing the following when loaded in a Legacy Mode BIOS:
chain --autofree http://boot.netboot.xyz/ipxe/netboot.xyz.lkrn
or when in EFI mode BIOS:
chain --autofree http://boot.netboot.xyz/ipxe/netboot.xyz.efi
This will load the appropriate netboot.xyz kernel with all of the proper options enabled.
If your version of iPXE has HTTPS support compiled in, you can retrieve those images over HTTPS. By default the upstream iPXE project does not compile in HTTPS support.
System Requirements
- i686, x86_64, or aarch64 Processor
- Bare Metal or Virtual Machine
- A hard wired ethernet connection (WiFi networking is not supported)
- At least 4GB of RAM is recommended
Memory requirements vary depending on the distribution. Live CD Images typically require a lot more memory as the ramdisk is needed to be loaded into memory. Live CD Images loaded over the network may need more than 4GB. If you experience issues where it fails to load during the initrd process, try giving the hardware or virtual machine more RAM. You will typically see errors like out of space or failure to write to destination in the initrd once the kernel has loaded if you don't have enough RAM.
Source Code
The source code for netboot.xyz is located on Github.
Contributing
Is there a new version of an operating system out? Have you found one that network boots well with iPXE? Pull requests are welcomed and encouraged and helps out the project! Feel free to issue a pull request for new versions or tools that you might find useful. Once merged into master, Github Actions will regenerate new versions of iPXE from upstream and deploy the latest changes to netboot.xyz. See more on contributing here.
Testing New Features
Under the Utilities menu on netboot.xyz, there's an option for "netboot.xyz endpoints". Features or changes that have been merged into the development branch can be loaded here to be tested before they are merged into production.
Version updates are typically deployed to the development endpoint and the primary rolling endpoint at the same time automatically. Once the development branch stabilizes, a new release is cut from the development branch and merged into master. This provides our stable point releases and releases new changes and capabilities related to menus or new features.
Communication
Feel free to open up an issue on Github or join us on our Discord server. Follow us on Twitter or like us on Facebook!