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PXE Boot: Network Booting

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Booting without a disk

PXE (Preboot Execution Environment) lets a machine boot an OS entirely over the network — no local hard drive or USB stick needed. This powers data center provisioning (bare-metal servers auto-install their OS), diskless thin clients, and rescue environments.

The process chains: DHCP discovers where the boot files are → TFTP downloads the bootloader → the bootloader loads the OS kernel → the kernel mounts a network filesystem or image.

Packets in motion — click to inspect:

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