Technique for reliable network booting of an operating system to

Details Technique for reliable network booting of an operating system to Technique for reliable network booting of an operating system to

1998-03-20

1999-10-26

Palys, Joseph E.

Electrical computers and digital processing systems: support

Digital data processing system initialization or configuration

Loading initialization program

713100, 709217, 709220, G06F 1300

Patent

active

059745479

ABSTRACT:
A technique, specifically apparatus and accompanying methods, for use in a client-server environment for booting an operating system (O/S), such as a 32-bit personal computer (PC) O/S, on a client computer through a networked connection to a server. Specifically, the server stores an image of a client hard disk including the client O/S and desired applications. During a boot process, a procedure, which is compliant with both an interrupt handler in the client and a network driver kernel in the client O/S, is installed in the client. Based on client O/S resources then available when, during the boot process, the client requests a local hard disk access to a particular sector, the procedure will re-direct that request, to the network file server, through a network driver kernel in the client O/S rather than through a client interrupt handler. Each such request is processed, to provide physical sector read or write access, through my inventive random access trivial file transfer protocol (RATFTP) server executing in the network server. Advantageously, the source of the sectors remains transparent to the client O/S, while it is being booted from a network connection, in lieu of a local hard disk drive. Hence, client hard disk emulation occurs seamlessly and continuously throughout the entire boot process even though, during this process, the client processing mode changes from real to protected and the client O/S resets and gains control of a client network adapter.

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P. Miller, TCP/IP Explained (.COPYRGT. 1997, Digital Press), specifically Chapter 9, "Booting Internet Hosts with BootP and TFTP", pp. 343-359.
W. R. Stevens, TCP/IP Illustrated, vol. 1--The Protocols (.COPYRGT. 1994, Addison-Wesley Inc.), specifically Chapter 16, "BOOTP: Bootstrap Protocol", pp. 215-222.

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