IPXE
Vorlage:Lowercase Vorlage:Infobox software
iPXE is an open-source implementation of the Preboot Execution Environment (PXE) client firmware and bootloader, created in 2010 as a fork of gPXE.[1] It can be used to enable computers without built-in PXE support to boot from the network, or to extend an existing PXE client implementation so it supports additional protocols.
While standard PXE clients use TFTP to transfer data, iPXE client firmware adds the ability to retrieve data through other protocols, including HTTP, iSCSI, ATA over Ethernet (AoE), and Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE). Also, iPXE can use a Wi-Fi link rather than requiring a wired connection.
PXE implementation
iPXE can be booted by a computer either by replacing (re-flashing) the existing standard PXE ROM on a network interface card (NIC), or by booting card's standard PXE ROM and then chainloading into the iPXE binary to obtain the features of iPXE without the need of re-flashing.
iPXE implements its own PXE stack, using a driver corresponding to the network card, or a UNDI driver if it was loaded by PXE itself. This allows you to use a PXE stack even if the network card has no boot ROM, by loading iPXE from a fixed medium.
Bootloader
Although its basic role was to implement a PXE stack, iPXE can be used as a full-featured network bootloader. It can fetch files from multiple network protocols,[2] such as TFTP, NFS, HTTP[3][4] or FTP, and can boot PXE, ELF, Linux, FreeBSD, multiboot, EFI, and Windows CE images.
In addition, it is scriptable and can load COMBOOT and COM32 SYSLINUX extensions. This allows you, for instance, to build a graphical menu for network boot.
