Well-packaged WinPE is very convenient for system maintenance and is well-liked by everyone. In the past, WinPE was generally started through hard disks/USB drives/cd - ROMs. Later, grub4dos and syslinux have started to support the bootp standard, which provides convenience for us to remotely start WinPE through the network. And currently, most motherboards' integrated network cards support PXE, so more and more friends in China are playing with PXE network - booting WinPE;
To make WinPE can be remotely started from the network (PXE boot), in addition to the need for network boot programs (NBP) and the support of WinPE itself, there is also a more important set of services/protocols to support the boot of PXE clients, which are DHCP/TFTP; The configuration of DHCP and TFTP used to be relatively complex and generally only supported in server systems. Later, some classic integrated tools have been spread, and just one small program can complete all the work, such as the commonly used tftp32.exe;
I see that many friends playing with network boot on forums also use this tool, but this tool was originally in English and then was localized by domestic users. Its functional design and interface layout are difficult to meet the needs of professional users. Today, when I was testing multi - boot switching boot, I used a newly launched "Remote Boot Manager" from the domestic Deepin Forum. It seems that it has done a lot of user - friendly functions for PXE boot support, which is convenient for everyone to configure multi - boot in multi - machine situations.
Next, I will demonstrate using grub4dos (grldr) and syslinux (pxelinux.0) to start simultaneously
The main interface of the software is as follows:
Right - click the server in the menu and select ; As shown in the following figure:
The dialog box can be popped up, and the relevant parameters of DHCP can be set here;
The start - stop range of DHCP - assigned IP: 192.168.10.100~192.168.10.250
Subnet mask: 255.255.255.0
Gateway: 192.168.10.1
Under normal circumstances, these parameters can be automatically generated by the software during operation. If necessary, they can be configured according to the situation, but when setting manually, attention should be paid to preventing address conflicts, otherwise it will affect the normal boot of the client from PXE.
As shown in the following figure:
In "Boot Configuration", the can be configured. The boot file here refers to the boot file that will be downloaded and executed by the PXE client via TFTP. For example, the commonly used grldr
The "Boot File" configured here is the default boot file, and all newly started PXE boot workstations will start with this boot file when connecting to this.
In fact, the biggest feature of this "Remote Boot Manager" is that it supports multi - boot, that is, we can establish multiple boot groups, each group sets a "Boot File (NBP)", and the clients that need to boot can be added to these boot groups respectively to boot different systems with different boot files.
For this, we can right - click the "Boot Group" in the tree - type list on the left of the main interface and select
The dialog box is popped up, as shown in the following figure: Here, the new boot file can be set; The registration working directory must be set normally, especially when starting WINPE by transferring files one by one via TFTP, if the working directory is set incorrectly, it will lead to the failure to load files normally;
The basic settings are over here.
Next, I start a client and set it to boot from the PXE network card;
It only takes three seconds from the workstation sending the DHCP request to the appearance of the grub4dos menu, which is really very fast;
The grub4dos menu here is written in advance. There are many tutorials and examples about writing menu.lst on many domestic forums. This menu has also been modified. The way to start WinPE in this menu is to start by loading the ISO file over the network. In theory, as long as the PE that supports CD - ROM boot can be started directly in ISO mode, and there is no need to transform the files of WinPE.
title Start Deepin_WinPE from ISO
map --mem (pd)/Deepin_PE4.iso (hd32)
map --hook
chainloader (hd32)
boot
The loading process depends on the size of the ISO file. Sometimes it will be a little slower
Booted to the PE desktop.
Just now, we were booted with the default grldr, and an ISO file of WinPE was loaded. Next, we will try to use pxelinux.0 to boot and start WinPE in another way
We have already created a pxelinux group in the "Boot Group" before. Here, we only need to "drag" this client to this group.
It can also be added to this group in the right - click menu;
Restart the client. At this time, the client will use pxelinx.0 as the boot file to start over the network, and the relevant boot configuration is set by the menu file of pxelinux.0. I just copied the configured one directly.
LABEL 03PE
MENU LABEL Start WIN03 PE System
MENU DEFAULT
kernel /BOOT/STARTROM.0
In this way, WinPE is successfully network - booted in another way;
So, I found several WinPE packages encapsulated by experts on the Internet, created several new boot groups, and set the corresponding boot files. (The encapsulated WinPE downloaded from the Internet generally comes with boot files and menu files, just fill in according to the instructions)
Change the boot group of the client and restart;
Switching different boot groups can all start normally according to the specified boot files respectively, which is very convenient.
The knowledge of writing grub4dos and pxelinux menus and the encapsulation of WinPE are not within the scope of this article. Friends who have not done network boot before can search on the Internet, and many ready - made files made by experts can be directly used. There are also many relevant introduction articles. For those who have been using tftp32.exe to play with network - booting WinPE for a long time, there is no need to say more. I hope everyone can experience this tool, support domestic products and original creations. May this tool bring convenience to everyone's work, study and encapsulation testing.
[ Last edited by hbxfwjww on 2010-7-13 at 17:52 ]
To make WinPE can be remotely started from the network (PXE boot), in addition to the need for network boot programs (NBP) and the support of WinPE itself, there is also a more important set of services/protocols to support the boot of PXE clients, which are DHCP/TFTP; The configuration of DHCP and TFTP used to be relatively complex and generally only supported in server systems. Later, some classic integrated tools have been spread, and just one small program can complete all the work, such as the commonly used tftp32.exe;
I see that many friends playing with network boot on forums also use this tool, but this tool was originally in English and then was localized by domestic users. Its functional design and interface layout are difficult to meet the needs of professional users. Today, when I was testing multi - boot switching boot, I used a newly launched "Remote Boot Manager" from the domestic Deepin Forum. It seems that it has done a lot of user - friendly functions for PXE boot support, which is convenient for everyone to configure multi - boot in multi - machine situations.
Next, I will demonstrate using grub4dos (grldr) and syslinux (pxelinux.0) to start simultaneously
The main interface of the software is as follows:
Right - click the server in the menu and select ; As shown in the following figure:
The dialog box can be popped up, and the relevant parameters of DHCP can be set here;
The start - stop range of DHCP - assigned IP: 192.168.10.100~192.168.10.250
Subnet mask: 255.255.255.0
Gateway: 192.168.10.1
Under normal circumstances, these parameters can be automatically generated by the software during operation. If necessary, they can be configured according to the situation, but when setting manually, attention should be paid to preventing address conflicts, otherwise it will affect the normal boot of the client from PXE.
As shown in the following figure:
In "Boot Configuration", the can be configured. The boot file here refers to the boot file that will be downloaded and executed by the PXE client via TFTP. For example, the commonly used grldr
The "Boot File" configured here is the default boot file, and all newly started PXE boot workstations will start with this boot file when connecting to this.
In fact, the biggest feature of this "Remote Boot Manager" is that it supports multi - boot, that is, we can establish multiple boot groups, each group sets a "Boot File (NBP)", and the clients that need to boot can be added to these boot groups respectively to boot different systems with different boot files.
For this, we can right - click the "Boot Group" in the tree - type list on the left of the main interface and select
The dialog box is popped up, as shown in the following figure: Here, the new boot file can be set; The registration working directory must be set normally, especially when starting WINPE by transferring files one by one via TFTP, if the working directory is set incorrectly, it will lead to the failure to load files normally;
The basic settings are over here.
Next, I start a client and set it to boot from the PXE network card;
It only takes three seconds from the workstation sending the DHCP request to the appearance of the grub4dos menu, which is really very fast;
The grub4dos menu here is written in advance. There are many tutorials and examples about writing menu.lst on many domestic forums. This menu has also been modified. The way to start WinPE in this menu is to start by loading the ISO file over the network. In theory, as long as the PE that supports CD - ROM boot can be started directly in ISO mode, and there is no need to transform the files of WinPE.
title Start Deepin_WinPE from ISO
map --mem (pd)/Deepin_PE4.iso (hd32)
map --hook
chainloader (hd32)
boot
The loading process depends on the size of the ISO file. Sometimes it will be a little slower
Booted to the PE desktop.
Just now, we were booted with the default grldr, and an ISO file of WinPE was loaded. Next, we will try to use pxelinux.0 to boot and start WinPE in another way
We have already created a pxelinux group in the "Boot Group" before. Here, we only need to "drag" this client to this group.
It can also be added to this group in the right - click menu;
Restart the client. At this time, the client will use pxelinx.0 as the boot file to start over the network, and the relevant boot configuration is set by the menu file of pxelinux.0. I just copied the configured one directly.
LABEL 03PE
MENU LABEL Start WIN03 PE System
MENU DEFAULT
kernel /BOOT/STARTROM.0
In this way, WinPE is successfully network - booted in another way;
So, I found several WinPE packages encapsulated by experts on the Internet, created several new boot groups, and set the corresponding boot files. (The encapsulated WinPE downloaded from the Internet generally comes with boot files and menu files, just fill in according to the instructions)
Change the boot group of the client and restart;
Switching different boot groups can all start normally according to the specified boot files respectively, which is very convenient.
The knowledge of writing grub4dos and pxelinux menus and the encapsulation of WinPE are not within the scope of this article. Friends who have not done network boot before can search on the Internet, and many ready - made files made by experts can be directly used. There are also many relevant introduction articles. For those who have been using tftp32.exe to play with network - booting WinPE for a long time, there is no need to say more. I hope everyone can experience this tool, support domestic products and original creations. May this tool bring convenience to everyone's work, study and encapsulation testing.
[ Last edited by hbxfwjww on 2010-7-13 at 17:52 ]
