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Hi, owner of https://netboot.xyz https://netboot.xyz here. netboot.xyz has https support, with http support still being in place for those that don't have http

Hi, owner of https://netboot.xyz https://netboot.xyz here. netboot.xyz has https support, with http support still being in place for those that don't have https support compiled into iPXE as it's not compiled by default. I'd recommend checking out the site directly if this is something that interests you. All of the source code running the site is on github as well and we're always open to contributions. We also always try to retrieve the installer kernels directly from the OS supported mirrors when possible so that they are pulled from trusted sources.

LeonM 8y ago
Hi, thanks for the work! I believe I first discovered netboot.xyz on a show HN. I have set up the DHCP in my lab to serve netboot.xyz, so I can experiment with different OS'es without much hassle. It has been great so far.
- m-p-3 8y ago
  I even used it successfully on a VPS which had a limited about of OSes available. Awesome project!
bubblethink 8y ago
netboot.xyz is great! My main use case is to boot things off of drac/ilo etc. If you have a remote server hosted in a datacenter and have struggled to use drac's virtual iso feature, boot the netboot iso. Since it's tiny, it works great for booting, and it switches to the primary NIC once the OS is booting. If you try to use your full iso with drac, it will be painfully slow because it goes through several layers of indirection (reverse proxies set up by your provider, the weird drac driver etc.)
rwmj 8y ago
Do you serve the main images over tftp and is it reliable? We have been building an NBD server with this use case in mind and had on and off discussions with Foreman people about a similar case. In theory NBD should be much more efficient since it will only serve the main image on demand (but if you want you can still use it like tftp by copying /dev/nbd0 to a ram disk at boot). It also supports TLS. https://github.com/libguestfs/nbdkit https://github.com/libguestfs/nbdkit https://github.com/libguestfs/nbdkit/blob/master/plugins/floppy/nbdkit-floppy-plugin.pod https://github.com/libguestfs/nbdkit/blob/master/plugins/flo...
- walrus01 8y ago
  most tftpd (note: not ftpd or sftpd) were really not intended to be exposed to the traffic of a public internet connection. They're for stuff like serving an image to a voip phone that is booting on a LAN with tftp parameters to go and get a .xml provisioning file.
StavrosK 8y ago
Does this mean I can use this to boot ISOs off my home server? That would be great for installing Ubuntu, for example. Is there a guide on how to do this somewhere?

LeonM 8y ago

Hi, thanks for the work! I believe I first discovered netboot.xyz on a show HN. I have set up the DHCP in my lab to serve netboot.xyz, so I can experiment with different OS'es without much hassle. It has been great so far.

m-p-3 8y ago
I even used it successfully on a VPS which had a limited about of OSes available. Awesome project!

bubblethink 8y ago

netboot.xyz is great! My main use case is to boot things off of drac/ilo etc. If you have a remote server hosted in a datacenter and have struggled to use drac's virtual iso feature, boot the netboot iso. Since it's tiny, it works great for booting, and it switches to the primary NIC once the OS is booting. If you try to use your full iso with drac, it will be painfully slow because it goes through several layers of indirection (reverse proxies set up by your provider, the weird drac driver etc.)

rwmj 8y ago

Do you serve the main images over tftp and is it reliable? We have been building an NBD server with this use case in mind and had on and off discussions with Foreman people about a similar case. In theory NBD should be much more efficient since it will only serve the main image on demand (but if you want you can still use it like tftp by copying /dev/nbd0 to a ram disk at boot). It also supports TLS. https://github.com/libguestfs/nbdkit https://github.com/libguestfs/nbdkit https://github.com/libguestfs/nbdkit/blob/master/plugins/floppy/nbdkit-floppy-plugin.pod https://github.com/libguestfs/nbdkit/blob/master/plugins/flo...

walrus01 8y ago
most tftpd (note: not ftpd or sftpd) were really not intended to be exposed to the traffic of a public internet connection. They're for stuff like serving an image to a voip phone that is booting on a LAN with tftp parameters to go and get a .xml provisioning file.

StavrosK 8y ago

Does this mean I can use this to boot ISOs off my home server? That would be great for installing Ubuntu, for example. Is there a guide on how to do this somewhere?