netboot of tcl

[cast-fish]

Hello,

your wiki and info pages show examples of how to boot a diskless machine
from another sister machine in your home. Booting over LAN

after reading this is there something i am doing wrong?

does this method require a null modem cable?

thanks

V

[gerald_clark]

How would we know if you are doing something wrong?
Null modem cable? What are you talking about?

You do have a PXE enabled X86, correct?

[cast-fish]

uh Gerald....i am unsure

after reading the wiki went about trying to follow it...

the diskless laptop has the first boot device as "NIC" but the bios does not mention PXE anywhere...

The mother machine had that "terminal server" running and i followed all the defaults and linked the 2 machines to each other with a LAN cable

should each machine have it's own cable?.....cable A going from laptop to the router's first Lan socket (1)...
cable B from going the mother machine to the  router's second LAN socket? (2)....?

i only followed the wiki as far as 2 pages...i did not believe further reading of PXE was needed......

V

[gerald_clark]

You have not provided any useful information.
The first part of the netboot article describes booting one Core machine using another Core machine as the server.

The "The following sections assume that you have working servers" section concerns more advanced PXE boot options that require a working PXE system
( Not necessarily Core based ).

[cast-fish]

Yes Gerald

it's the first sectiojn i followed....booting a machine from a mother machine...i was reading those pages
about twice...it seemed simple and no further reading was needed beyond that

the diskless laptop indeed is fully PXE compliant....but i don't want a red herring here

i simply was trying to boot a diskless laptop..... from another TCL machine in the room...(i am unsure if PXE applies to that)

V

[gerald_clark]

PXE boot is clearly stated more than once in that article.
Not all machines are auto-sensing on the NIC.
The safest way to connect them is with separate cables and a switch not connected to your local network.
If you connect them to your local network, your network's dhcp server will interfere with the PXE boot function, as it will not pass a correct 'next server' value.

[cast-fish]

hi

right....it's more complex than i thought to boot a diskless machine from another machine
in the room.

I don't know how to set up servers....and that hidden sentence in the intro of the wiki page missed me..
(then we set up pxelinux servers a tftp servers).  it just later assumes that you know how to do that server
set up

i can see now the wiki is involved....is it really that involved to do the booting?

i see in the forum that somebody wrote how to build a TCL with pxe booting....

i mean is there a simple way to do this booting ONE diskless laptop from a spare TCL machine?

V

[gerald_clark]

Connect the two machines.
Boot the server.
Start the ControlPanel.
Use the Network button to assign a static IP.
Use the Terminal Server button to configure the PXE server.

Boot the client.

[cast-fish]

right Gerald

that sounds simple enough...it makes sense.


will give that a go here...

thanks then

V

[cast-fish]

1) connected the two machines to each other uising a single LAN cable....cat 5

2) opened NETWORK from control panel on the server machine... and put the static IP of 192.168.0.30

3) applied it

4) opened Network Server on the server machine and followed the steps accepting defaults

5) left terminal open

6) booted client machine

nothing

PXE exiting failed...failed boot media check cable      (thats the error message)

maybe this particular example laptop isn't good at pxe....but the other diskless Laptop (the laptop needing netbooting).... that laptop seems to be better at PXE booting and broadcasts for a Dhcp etc....so i will try that laptop

V

[gerald_clark]

Older laptops may not work directly connected with a standard network cable.  Use 2 cables and a dedicated switch.

[NewUser]

Unless you use a crossover cable between the two PCs, that setup shouldn't work.  Connect both PCs to a switch or hub and you'll stand a better chance.

[cast-fish]

yes sorry....my OP meant "crossoer cable" ...i am 45 see...and back in the days
there was a similar cable called a "null modem cable".....which i made at work
for a friend ...

THe NM Cable was used to link to x86 PC's that were running the same flight simulator program on each
((( 3D war game. )))

The players then flew jet fighters against each other..... each player sitting at their own PC...
(that was back in 1997)

since then we now have online gaming right?.......and PS4....gazillion right


will try to get hold of a cross over cable etc

thx

V

[dcyran]

I understand that 2 machines can be connected directly, without a router or switch, with a 'crossover' cable (where pair s 2 & 3 have their respective wires switched) -but the first and self booting machine would have to be manually told what ip address it has, and be setup as a server; the other would be told it's address by the first machine. 

The second machine would boot if it has a boot by 'pxe' setting in bios; my older machines listed 'lan' boot, but this would need a rom chip with a boot program on it (which is different from the motherboard bios).  I played with this in the past,but never got it working.

If you use a switch or router, then regular cat5 cables would be used.  The router would need to have the dhcp disabled -as it would interfere with the Tinycore server.  There is a way to have the router with the default dhcp server on -the Tinycore server would probably use, instead, the dmasq application setup and running as a proxy-dhcp.  (been reading to do this, but never did this).

Hope this is more correct than misleading.

[cast-fish]

yes thanks for that....

i tried TWO cat 5 cables (one from each machine) into the router...but like you say, the router dchp must be dissabled...(i did not do that or know how to)

i tried the whole process from the earlier posts here...while using these two cables ...but the netbooting did not work right

yes, the laptop needing netboot does have proper pxe...it looks particularly
good in it's design for pxe..

i have never messed with my router but it is not bad   (livebox 92be)  the router also has a usb socket which may be for sending programs from pen drive into it's chips


v