System for remote booting of muntliple operating systems using chained bootstrap mechanism in a network

摘要

A chained bootstrap that is identified on a Boot Image Negotiation Layer (BINL) server and which is specified as the default bootstrap for the remote booting of client machines without regard to what client OS will finally be booted, is provided. The default bootstrap is downloaded as the initial bootstrap when the client sends the remote boot request to the TFTP boot server identified by the BINL server. This bootstrap then acquires a configuration file for the client from the TFTP server and determines the specific OS and associated bootstrap to download to the client. The chained bootstrap then relocates itself in memory on the client so that the actual client OS bootstrap can load and execute properly. The chained bootstrap then requests the actual client bootstrap from the TFTP server to continue the boot of the OS.