8 ms·

iVentoy

260 points by jaclaz 3y ago

jaclaz 3y ago
From the Author of Ventoy, a new tool for lan/PXE booting.
alpenbazi 3y ago
if it works as good as ventoy it will be the go-to solution
- xen2xen1 3y ago
  The second I see ISCSI I'm in.
  - jwiz 3y ago
    ipxe supports iscsi booting.
    - xen2xen1 3y ago
      Yes, but I didn't see that for IVentoy, even though I use Ventoy regularly.
trillic 3y ago
Can I run this on my router with a USB flash drive?
- geek_at 3y ago
  probably easier to use netboot.xyz (https://netboot.xyz/docs https://netboot.xyz/docs)
watersb 3y ago
Original Ventoy is a boot utility - a shim that boots ISO image files. You run the included script, it installs onto the USB thumb drive you select, and then you can copy ISO images to the USB filesystem. Each ISO automatically becomes a GRUB boot menu option. This thing is fantastic. iVentoy is the same idea, over a local network. PXE is a very old and pervasive standard for booting a computer by discovering a special network file server. You wouldn't need a thumb drive at all - the client is in the BIOS of the motherboard and network interface. Original idea dates from a time when mass storage - more than a few megabytes - was too expensive to install in each workstation, and we ran everything, including OS system files, on the file server. And we liked it.
- jwiz 3y ago
  How is the ISO image presented to the booting machine via the network? Usually it's not too hard to load kernel/initrd from an ISO via ipxe/http, but then they need to have a way to see the ISO themselves.
  - codetrotter 3y ago
    > How is the ISO image presented to the booting machine via the network? Probably in two stages. First a small kernel/initrd is booted with PXE from dhcp+tftp Then that one has the ability to get the iso image either via tftp, or perhaps http or ftp or some other protocol, from the machine that served the initial files over tftp
    - jwiz 3y ago
      Yes, that is how you would do it if you are rolling your own boot setup. But, most ISO images are not set up to work this way, and the implication of the iVentoy site is that you can just use unmodified ISO images. That is what I am wondering: How can you use unmodified ISO images to boot, as images, over the network? (Or can you?) All the iPXE forum posts about this idea essentially end with "you can't do that without kernel support for reading the rest of the ISO.", so if iVentoy has solved that, I wanted to know how.
      - codetrotter 3y ago
        The situation is not all that different from their other tool for having multiple ISOs on a usb drive though, is it? You have ISO images that usually you would write onto a CD or write to a USB drive with dd. These cannot boot by themselves if you just put the ISO file as is onto a FAT32 USB drive or similar. But Ventoy has a stage one boot thing for USB which you can then use to select an ISO file from your USB and somehow boot it. So iVentoy would work the same way. The stage one is from iVentoy, not from the ISO itself. And that stage one does something that makes it possible to boot the ISO that it retrieved. Similar to how the USB based thing somehow can boot the ISO files from the USB.
quincepie 3y ago
Ventoy is one software that I always recommend to my peers. The ability to just throw the isos into a flash drive and have them work with no problem and no flashing (except for the initial Ventoy flash) makes installing OSs so much easier. The first thing i do when i get a flash drive is to install Ventoy on it. I have used iPXE for a while but it bothered me that the setup is a bit difficult especially not being able to load ISOs directly. It made me wish that Ventoy was a PXE compatible. Now that iVentoy exists, this would make my life so much easier
askiiart 3y ago
Does anyone know of an open-source alternative to this? I've been looking for a piece of software like this for a while, but I'm not gonna run software with full, unrestricted root (and internet) access unless the source code is available, or it's at least highly trusted.
- gh02t 3y ago
  https://netboot.xyz/ https://netboot.xyz/
  - vamega 3y ago
    I’ve used this before. Anyone know how is iVentoy different from netboot?
    - PlutoIsAPlanet 3y ago
      iVentoy uses ISOs and NetBoot IIRC does not use ISOs.
- unqueued 3y ago
  I actually have something I've been meaning to put on github. I wrote it over a decade ago and I need to dockerize it. I only made it in Vagrant. But it can do something iVentoy can not. https://www.iventoy.com/en/faq.html https://www.iventoy.com/en/faq.html: The computer which run iVentoy must be in the same LAN with them. Besides, there must no other DHCP servers in the same LAN. It can coexist with an existing DHCP server. That means you can just start it up on your own network without any modifications, and start netbooting machines. It turns out that multiple DHCP servers can co-exist on the same network segment. So I just have a second dhcp server solely for a pxe bootstrapper. At the time, at least the initial download must be tftp, but I used a stripped down ipxe stub that took advantage of the universal undi network drivers, and then loaded the rest (usually syslinux) over a fast HTTPS connection. From there, iSCSI was no problem, and I could also use tools like plop, memdisk, or grub4dos, as well as Windows 7/8/10 with wimboot. I remember for some distros like Knoppix, we would use an NBI driver to just mount the iso directly over the network, which could be far simpler and more performant than NFS. EDIT: To be honest, it is simple enough that it doesn't have to use Docker. It is mostly dnsmasq and PHP.
getcrunk 3y ago
As another commenter pointed out NetBoot.xyz is open source
WirelessGigabit 3y ago
I tried netboot.xyz but their IPv6 support in 2023 is still broken... https://github.com/netbootxyz/netboot.xyz/issues/283 https://github.com/netbootxyz/netboot.xyz/issues/283 Let's try this one.
- mobilio 3y ago
  I have same issue here. Also OpenWRT and IPv6 support.
kiririn 3y ago
I’m probably missing out on a great tool, but such a low level application being produce of the hundred acre wood gives me the heebie jeebies. Not to mention it being closed source, regardless of origin!
nuodag 3y ago
This looks very cool, but no secure boot means i won’t be able to use it at work. (from the faq:) > Does iVentoy support secure boot? > NO. In UEFI mode you must disable secure boot in the BIOS before use iVentoy
derelicta 3y ago
ahah I discovered this tool yesterday as I sought to reinstall W11 on my school laptop from debian. Pleasently surprised it (nearly) worked right away; just forgot to disable SecureBoot before anything

iVentoy

260 points by jaclaz 3y ago

jaclaz 3y ago

From the Author of Ventoy, a new tool for lan/PXE booting.

alpenbazi 3y ago

if it works as good as ventoy it will be the go-to solution

xen2xen1 3y ago
The second I see ISCSI I'm in.
- jwiz 3y ago
  ipxe supports iscsi booting.
  - xen2xen1 3y ago
    Yes, but I didn't see that for IVentoy, even though I use Ventoy regularly.

trillic 3y ago

Can I run this on my router with a USB flash drive?

geek_at 3y ago
probably easier to use netboot.xyz (https://netboot.xyz/docs https://netboot.xyz/docs)

watersb 3y ago

Original Ventoy is a boot utility - a shim that boots ISO image files. You run the included script, it installs onto the USB thumb drive you select, and then you can copy ISO images to the USB filesystem. Each ISO automatically becomes a GRUB boot menu option. This thing is fantastic. iVentoy is the same idea, over a local network. PXE is a very old and pervasive standard for booting a computer by discovering a special network file server. You wouldn't need a thumb drive at all - the client is in the BIOS of the motherboard and network interface. Original idea dates from a time when mass storage - more than a few megabytes - was too expensive to install in each workstation, and we ran everything, including OS system files, on the file server. And we liked it.

jwiz 3y ago
How is the ISO image presented to the booting machine via the network? Usually it's not too hard to load kernel/initrd from an ISO via ipxe/http, but then they need to have a way to see the ISO themselves.
- codetrotter 3y ago
  > How is the ISO image presented to the booting machine via the network? Probably in two stages. First a small kernel/initrd is booted with PXE from dhcp+tftp Then that one has the ability to get the iso image either via tftp, or perhaps http or ftp or some other protocol, from the machine that served the initial files over tftp
  - jwiz 3y ago
    Yes, that is how you would do it if you are rolling your own boot setup. But, most ISO images are not set up to work this way, and the implication of the iVentoy site is that you can just use unmodified ISO images. That is what I am wondering: How can you use unmodified ISO images to boot, as images, over the network? (Or can you?) All the iPXE forum posts about this idea essentially end with "you can't do that without kernel support for reading the rest of the ISO.", so if iVentoy has solved that, I wanted to know how.
    - codetrotter 3y ago
      The situation is not all that different from their other tool for having multiple ISOs on a usb drive though, is it? You have ISO images that usually you would write onto a CD or write to a USB drive with dd. These cannot boot by themselves if you just put the ISO file as is onto a FAT32 USB drive or similar. But Ventoy has a stage one boot thing for USB which you can then use to select an ISO file from your USB and somehow boot it. So iVentoy would work the same way. The stage one is from iVentoy, not from the ISO itself. And that stage one does something that makes it possible to boot the ISO that it retrieved. Similar to how the USB based thing somehow can boot the ISO files from the USB.

quincepie 3y ago

Ventoy is one software that I always recommend to my peers. The ability to just throw the isos into a flash drive and have them work with no problem and no flashing (except for the initial Ventoy flash) makes installing OSs so much easier. The first thing i do when i get a flash drive is to install Ventoy on it. I have used iPXE for a while but it bothered me that the setup is a bit difficult especially not being able to load ISOs directly. It made me wish that Ventoy was a PXE compatible. Now that iVentoy exists, this would make my life so much easier

askiiart 3y ago

Does anyone know of an open-source alternative to this? I've been looking for a piece of software like this for a while, but I'm not gonna run software with full, unrestricted root (and internet) access unless the source code is available, or it's at least highly trusted.

gh02t 3y ago
https://netboot.xyz/ https://netboot.xyz/
- vamega 3y ago
  I’ve used this before. Anyone know how is iVentoy different from netboot?
  - PlutoIsAPlanet 3y ago
    iVentoy uses ISOs and NetBoot IIRC does not use ISOs.
unqueued 3y ago
I actually have something I've been meaning to put on github. I wrote it over a decade ago and I need to dockerize it. I only made it in Vagrant. But it can do something iVentoy can not. https://www.iventoy.com/en/faq.html https://www.iventoy.com/en/faq.html: The computer which run iVentoy must be in the same LAN with them. Besides, there must no other DHCP servers in the same LAN. It can coexist with an existing DHCP server. That means you can just start it up on your own network without any modifications, and start netbooting machines. It turns out that multiple DHCP servers can co-exist on the same network segment. So I just have a second dhcp server solely for a pxe bootstrapper. At the time, at least the initial download must be tftp, but I used a stripped down ipxe stub that took advantage of the universal undi network drivers, and then loaded the rest (usually syslinux) over a fast HTTPS connection. From there, iSCSI was no problem, and I could also use tools like plop, memdisk, or grub4dos, as well as Windows 7/8/10 with wimboot. I remember for some distros like Knoppix, we would use an NBI driver to just mount the iso directly over the network, which could be far simpler and more performant than NFS. EDIT: To be honest, it is simple enough that it doesn't have to use Docker. It is mostly dnsmasq and PHP.

getcrunk 3y ago

As another commenter pointed out NetBoot.xyz is open source

WirelessGigabit 3y ago

I tried netboot.xyz but their IPv6 support in 2023 is still broken... https://github.com/netbootxyz/netboot.xyz/issues/283 https://github.com/netbootxyz/netboot.xyz/issues/283 Let's try this one.

mobilio 3y ago
I have same issue here. Also OpenWRT and IPv6 support.

kiririn 3y ago

I’m probably missing out on a great tool, but such a low level application being produce of the hundred acre wood gives me the heebie jeebies. Not to mention it being closed source, regardless of origin!

nuodag 3y ago

This looks very cool, but no secure boot means i won’t be able to use it at work. (from the faq:) > Does iVentoy support secure boot? > NO. In UEFI mode you must disable secure boot in the BIOS before use iVentoy

derelicta 3y ago

ahah I discovered this tool yesterday as I sought to reinstall W11 on my school laptop from debian. Pleasently surprised it (nearly) worked right away; just forgot to disable SecureBoot before anything