Etherboot Developers Manual

Ken Yap, <kenUNDERSCOREyap AT users PERIOD sourceforge PERIOD net>

1. About this Developers Manual

• 1.1 Purpose / Scope of this Developers Manual
• 1.2 Obtaining the most recent version of this document
• 1.3 Document history
• 1.4 Feedback
• 1.5 Copyrights and Trademarks
• 1.6 Acknowledgements and Thanks

2. Characteristics of Etherboot

3. The execution environment of Etherboot

• 3.1 The network booting process
• 3.2 To compress or not to compress, that is the question
• 3.3 Real and protected mode

4. The architecture of Etherboot

• 4.1 Etherboot core
• 4.2 Drivers
• 4.3 Miscellaneous
• 4.4 External auxiliary programs

5. The development environment of Etherboot

6. Frequently asked questions

• 6.1 How portable is Etherboot?
• 6.2 How can I get Etherboot to boot a Cardbus (PCMCIA) or a USB NIC?

7. Writing an Etherboot Driver

• 7.1 Preliminaries
• 7.2 Background information
• 7.3 Structure of the code
• 7.4 Booting the code from a floppy
• 7.5 Booting the test code with another Etherboot ROM
• 7.6 Writing the code
• 7.7 Things to watch out for
• 7.8 Tidying up

8. A potted history of Etherboot