# What is the Purpose of /usr/ports/net/pxe



## tuaris (Jan 27, 2012)

I'm experimenting with setting up a PXE Boot server, so far all the guides tell me to use syslinux in some way and make changes to my DHCP server to load a specific file named pxelinux.0 directly from the tftp server.

I don't understand how the port net/pxe fits into all this?  

I thought that the PXE clients would automatically discover this information when a request is "sent out" and the PXE server would reply. However, it seems as the pxe port is not even being utilized.

Maybe I am not understanding, can someone please clear this up for me?


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## SirDice (Jan 27, 2012)

tuaris said:
			
		

> I'm experimenting with setting up a PXE Boot server, so far all the guides tell me to use syslinux in some way and make changes to my DHCP server to load a specific file named pxelinux.0 directly from the tftp server.


Those are Linux specific files needed to PXE boot a Linux machine.



> I don't understand how the port net/pxe fits into all this?


I think its pkg-desc is pretty clear what it does:


> This is a PXE daemon, which you can use to set up a networked boot menu for netbooting client machines (FreeBSD, Linux, Windows, etc.) that support & utilize Intel's Preboot eXecution Environment (PXE).





> I thought that the PXE clients would automatically discover this information when a request is "sent out" and the PXE server would reply. However, it seems as the pxe port is not even being utilized.


PXE uses DHCP/BOOTP and TFTP or NFS. Nothing more is needed.



> Maybe I am not understanding, can someone please clear this up for me?


This is a more FreeBSD specific guide. It's a little dated but should provide a lot of information.

FreeBSD Jumpstart Guide


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## wblock@ (Jan 27, 2012)

pxelinux.0 or gpxelinux.0 are boot loaders.  It's like booting from disk, but the boot loader arrives over the network.  Like the FreeBSD boot0 loader, it can boot multiple operating systems.

PXE Booting Utilities With FreeBSD

I have not tried net/pxe.


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