PXE-Like Boot?

[BostonBay]

Can the PINE 64 boot from a TFTP server or NFS Share?

For example, could a bootstrap be placed on the micro-SD that would boot a Linux OS over the network?  The bootstrap on the SD card would be simple and rarely change.  The Linux OS on the TFTP or NFS share could be dynamic.

Thanks!
-Ken

[tllim]

Can the PINE 64 boot from a TFTP server or NFS Share?

For example, could a bootstrap be placed on the micro-SD that would boot a Linux OS over the network?  The bootstrap on the SD card would be simple and rarely change.  The Linux OS on the TFTP or NFS share could be dynamic.

Thanks!
-Ken

Sounds possible, but not yet try out.

[tkaiser]

Sure, it's an u-boot feature and you've to configure the kernel correctly. Whether it's useable depends on the Pine guys being able to figure out how to configure this using Allwinner's BSP.

[BostonBay]

Looks like there are functionalities in GRUB to boot from network, so that may be a possibility (but I am not a GRUB expert).

Made my pledge for a 1GB/Gigabit Ethernet board - Delivery in March. Looking forward to playing with it.

[tkaiser]

GRUB

GRUB? You should start from here on: http://linux-sunxi.org/U-boot

And if you're lucky and the Pine guys manage to get someone paid or community support you will able to benefit from http://linux-sunxi.org/Mainline_U-Boot

[Groupers]

You should be able to pull a filesystem down over a network connection with the kernel or something like that. I've never done it but I don't think the bootloader has to be involved if you don't want it to. I don't know if there are (dis)advantages to either approach but take a look at this.

https://www.kernel.org/doc/Documentation...fsroot.txt

There may be other network boot methods which use Linux alone, surely bootloader support is unnecessary.

[tkaiser]

surely bootloader support is unnecessary.

LOL! YMMD. You will be surprised how much stuff depends solely on the bootloader in question when entering ARM/Allwinner land.

[JeffJibson]

You might also want to look at the FEL, FEL USBBoot, BROM, links on linux-sunxi's site.  Also, the link that I found that first showed me FEL: the-pine-a64-is-about-to-become=the-cheapest-ARM-64-bit-platform-to-run-Docker

I have a project I plan on using FEL on this forum: http://forum.pine64.org/showthread.php?tid=782

[baryluk]

yes you can, but you will still need a sd card in the pine to hold u-boot to do dhcp and tftp operations and load the kernel and initrd images, after that kernel can do its things and do the same (+ nfs for example).

I do not think pine64 can run u-boot without reading it from sd card right now.

[longsleep]

Pine64 U-Boot has no support for networking.