Etherboot is a software package for creating ROM images that can download code over an Ethernet network to be executed on an x86 computer. Many network adapters have a socket where a ROM chip can be installed. Etherboot is code that can be put in such a ROM. Etherboot can also be booted from floppies (mainly for testing purposes but some people have been known to use this all the time) and hard disk, as a LILO/SYSLINUX compatible image, or from a hard disk partition.
Etherboot requires the PC architecture, it does not work for other Linux platforms such as Alphas or Suns. Typically the computer is diskless and the code is Linux or FreeBSD, but these are not the only possibilities. The code uses the bootp, tftp and NFS Internet Protocols, among others.
For a somewhat out of date talk/tutorial type introduction to what Etherboot does and how to set it up, see my SLUG talk. You may wish to review this before reading further.
Etherboot is Open Source under the GNU General Public License Version 2 (GPL2). The license conditions can be obtained from the file COPYING in the top directory of the distribution or viewed at www.gnu.org. In particular note that if you are distributing binaries generated from Etherboot, such as ROMs or ROM images, you must provide or promise to provide the user with the source. If you have not made private changes to the code, you can do this by pointing the user to the Etherboot home page, noting the release version of course. If you have made private changes to the code, then you must distribute those changes too with binary distributions.
The GPL applies to the whole package but portions may be used under other licenses. See the section on source copyrights for details, file by file. Please support Open Source by joining the community and sharing. See the Etherboot home page for some ways you can help Etherboot.
No Warranty or Support: Etherboot comes with NO warranties of any kind. It is hoped that it will be useful to you, but NO responsibility is accepted for any outcome of using it. Etherboot also comes with NO support, although you may get helpful advice from the mailing lists listed on the Etherboot home page.
The following is the current NIC configuration file as of 2002-07-29.
Even if your NIC does not appear in the list, it may still be supported if the chip is one of those supported. Many OEMs use chips from foundries. An exhaustive list of brand names is impossible. The best strategy is to read the number on the LAN controller chip on the board.
# This is the config file for creating Makefile rules for Etherboot ROMs # # To make a ROM for a supported NIC locate the appropriate family # and add a line of the form # # ROM PCI-IDs Comment # # ROM is the desired output name for both .rom and .lzrom images. # PCI IDs are the PCI vendor and device IDs of the PCI NIC # For ISA NICs put - # Comment will be copied into config.c for display when detected # # All PCI ROMs that share a single driver are only built once (because they # only have different PCI-IDs, but identical code). ISA ROMS are built for # each ROM type, because different vendors used a different logic around the # basic chip. The most popular example is the NS8390, which some cards use # in PIO mode, some in DMA mode. Two chips currently don't fit into this nice # black-and-white scheme (the Lance and the NS8390). Their driver deals # with both PCI and ISA cards. These drivers will be treated similarly to # ISA only drivers by genrules.pl and are compiled for each ROM type that is # ISA, and additionally compiled for the PCI card type. # # Then do: make clean, make Roms and make # # Please send additions to this file to <kenUNDERSCOREyap AT users PERIOD sourceforge PERIOD net> # Start of configuration family 3c595 # 3c59x cards (Vortex) and 3c900 cards # If your 3c900 NIC detects but fails to work, e.g. no link light, with # the 3c90x driver, try using the 3c595 driver. I have one report that the # 3c595 driver handles these NICs properly. (The 595 driver uses the # programmed I/O mode of operation, whereas the 90x driver uses the bus # mastering mode. These NICs are capable of either mode.) When it comes to # making a ROM, as usual, you must choose the correct image, the one that # contains the same PCI IDs as your NIC. 3c590 0x10b7,0x5900 3c595 0x10b7,0x5950 3c595-1 0x10b7,0x5951 3c595-2 0x10b7,0x5952 3c900-tpo 0x10b7,0x9000 3c900-t4 0x10b7,0x9001 3c900b-tpo 0x10b7,0x9004 3c900b-combo 0x10b7,0x9005 3c900b-tpb2 0x10b7,0x9006 3c900b-fl 0x10b7,0x900a family 3c90x # Original 90x revisions: 3c905-tpo 0x10b7,0x9000 10 Base TPO 3c905-t4 0x10b7,0x9001 10/100 T4 3c905-tpo100 0x10b7,0x9050 10/100 TPO 3c905-combo 0x10b7,0x9051 10 Base Combo # Newer 90xB revisions: 3c905b-tpo 0x10b7,0x9004 10 Base TPO 3c905b-combo 0x10b7,0x9005 10 Base Combo 3c905b-tpb2 0x10b7,0x9006 10 Base TP and Base2 3c905b-fl 0x10b7,0x900a 10 Base FL 3c905b-tpo100 0x10b7,0x9055 10/100 TPO 3c905b-t4 0x10b7,0x9056 10/100 T4 3c905b-9058 0x10b7,0x9058 0x9058 3c905b-fx 0x10b7,0x905a 10 Base FX # Newer 90xC revision: 3c905c-tpo 0x10b7,0x9200 10/100 TPO (3C905C-TXM) 3c980 0x10b7,0x9800 3c9805 0x10b7,0x9805 3csoho100-tx 0x10b7,0x7646 family eepro100 # Intel Etherexpress Pro/100 eepro100 0x8086,0x1229 82559er 0x8086,0x1209 id1029 0x8086,0x1029 id1030 0x8086,0x1030 id1038 0x8086,0x1038 82562et 0x8086,0x1039 82562em 0x8086,0x2449 family e1000 #Intel Etherexpress Pro/1000 e1000 0x8086,0x1000 e1000-fib 0x8086,0x1001 e1000-cop 0x8086,0x1004 e1000-ecop 0x8086,0x1008 e1000-creb 0x8086,0x100d family lance # Lance PCI PCNet/32 lancepci 0x1022,0x2000 pcnetfastiii 0x1022,0x2625 amdhomepna 0x1022,0x2001 AMD HomePNA ne2100 - Novell NE2100, NE1500 ni6510 - Racal-Interlan NI6510 family tulip dc21040 0x1011,0x0002 dc21041 0x1011,0x0014 Tulip+ ds21140 0x1011,0x0009 ds21140a 0x1011,0x0009 ds21142 0x1011,0x0019 Tulip 21142 ds21143 0x1011,0x0019 Tulip 21143 # Netgear FA310TX and similar Tulip clones 82c168 0x11ad,0x0002 kne110tx 0x11ad,0x0002 lc82c115 0x11ad,0xc115 LNE100TX # Macronix 987x5 Tulip clones mx98713 0x10d9,0x0512 mx98715 0x10d9,0x0531 mx98725 0x10d9,0x0531 # Another Macronix clone? mxic-98715 0x1113,0x1217 an981 0x1317,0x0981 ADMTek Centaur-P (stmicro) an983 0x1113,0x1216 ADMTek Comet 983 centaur-p 0x1317,0x0985 ADMtek Centaur-P centaur-c 0x1317,0x1985 ax88140 0x125b,0x1400 ASIX AX88140 ax88141 0x125b,0x1400 # Davicom, but using the Tulip driver dm9100 0x1282,0x9100 dm9102 0x1282,0x9102 intel21145 0x8086,0x0039 Intel Tulip rl100tx 0x11f6,0x9881 Compex RL100-TX xircomtulip 0x115d,0x0003 family davicom davicom9102 0x1282,0x9102 Davicom DM9102 davicom9009 0x1282,0x9009 family rtl8139 rtl8129 0x10ec,0x8129 Realtek 8129 rtl8139 0x10ec,0x8139 Realtek 8139 smc1211 0x1112,0x1211 SMC1211 dfe538 0x1186,0x1300 D-Link DFE538TX family via-rhine dlink-530tx-old 0x1106,0x3043 Rhine-I dlink-530tx 0x1106,0x3065 # Rhine-II via-rhine-old 0x1106,0x6100 via-rhine 0x1106,0x3065 family w89c840 winbond840 0x1050,0x0840 Winbond W89c840 compexrl100atx 0x11f6,0x2011 Compex RL100-ATX family sis900 sis900 0x1039,0x0900 SIS 900 sis7016 0x1039,0x7016 SIS 7016 family natsemi fa311 0x100B,0x0020 Netgear FA311/312 fa312 0x100B,0x0020 Netgear FA311/312 dp83815 0x100B,0x0020 DP83815 family fa311 fa311too 0x100B,0x0020 DP83815 also family tlan #olicom2326 0x108d,0x0014 TI Thunderlan family prism2_plx ma301 0x1385,0x4100 Netgear MA301 family prism2_pci # Various Prism2.5 (PCI) devices that manifest themselves as Harris Semiconductor devices # (with the actual vendor appearing as the vendor of the first subsystem) prism2_pci 0x1260,0x3873 Generic Prism2.5 PCI device hwp01170 0x1260,0x3873 ActionTec HWP01170 dwl520 0x1260,0x3873 DLink DWL-520 family ns8390 # A few NE2000 PCI clones, list not exhaustive rtl8029 0x10ec,0x8029 RealTek 8029 dlink-528 0x1186,0x0300 D-Link DE528 winbond940 0x1050,0x0940 Winbond 86C940 compexrl2000 0x11f6,0x1401 Compex RL2000 ktiet32p2 0x8e2e,0x3000 KTI ET32P2 nv5000sc 0x4a14,0x5000 NetVin 5000SC holtek80232 0x12c3,0x0058 Holtek 80232 wd - WD8003/8013, SMC8216/8416, SMC 83c790 (EtherEZ) ne - NE1000/2000 and clones 3c503 - 3Com503, Etherlink II[/16] family epic100 epic100 0x10b8,0x0005 SMC 83c170 EPIC/100 family 3c509 3c509 - 3c509, ISA/EISA 3c529 - 3c529 == MCA 3c509 family 3c515 3c515 - 3c515, Fast EtherLink ISA family eepro eepro - Intel Etherexpress Pro/10 family cs89x0 cs89x0 - Crystal Semiconductor CS89x0 family depca depca - Digital DE100 and DE200 family i82586 3c507 - 3Com507 ni5210 - Racal-Interlan NI5210 exos205 - Exos 205 family ni5010 ni5010 - Racal-Interlan NI5010 family sk_g16 sk_g16 - Schneider and Koch G16 family smc9000 smc9000 - SMC9000 family tiara tiara - Tiara, Fujitsu Lancard The following drivers have notes in the src directory, please read them: 3c515.txt 3c90x.txt cs89x0.txt sis900.txt tulip.txt
All Etherboot drivers are autoprobing, which means they attempt to detect the hardware addresses at which the card is installed. It's fairly easy to write a driver if you know C and are familiar with Ethernet hardware interfacing. Please read the developer manual if you wish to do so.
Please join the Etherboot mailing lists. These are listed on the Etherboot home page. There is a users mailing list and a developers mailing list. The users list is for issues with building and running the software, while the developers list is for issues with features and coding.
Please post questions to the Etherboot mailing lists instead of mailing me because: you get the benefit of a lot of experts seeing your question (no, I don't know everything, if only because there are many configurations I have never used); a lot of people see the question and answer and this helps them too. You will usually not get any reply from me if you email questions to me directly. I want to make the best use of my time and that is by making sure that as many people as possible see the questions and answers. Note that I will post my replies to the mailing lists so to see the answers you should subscribe, or be willing to check the archives later.
Other lists you can join are the Netboot mailing list (joining details on Etherboot home page), and the Linux Terminal Server Project mailing lists at LTSP. The Etherboot and Netboot lists are for general netbooting issues, while LTSP is focused more on the LTSP packages. However there is a fair amount of overlap between the lists and many key people are on all lists.
Note that the Netboot mailing list is spam protected. If your ISP has been slack security-wise and had a machine of theirs get onto one of the Open Relay Blacklists, then you will not be allowed to post. The only things I can suggest are to change your ISP to a more responsible one, or to get a Web based mailbox. I cannot help you with problems here as I do not administer the Netboot mailing list.