PXE Boot From S3 Without a Traditional Boot Server
There’s a classic bootstrapping paradox in provisioning. To install an OS, you need something already running on that machine. Historically, it was an image on CD or USB, which scales badly already if you have more than two or three machines. Moreover, what if you don’t have physical access to them?
PXE (a.k.a. Preboot Execution Environment) solves it by pushing bootstrap data into the network card’s firmware. That is right: before any disk is touched, before any OS exists, the machine’s NIC itself can pull an executable off the network and run it. The machine arrives with nothing and leaves with an OS.
This is why netboot basically underpins all bare-metal automation: datacenter provisioning, lab imaging, diskless workstations, Kubernetes node installation, every “reinstall this box” button which saves your day sometimes when you screw things up. Recently, I used our internal PXE to provision a newcomer’s PC because I did...
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