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Netboot.xyz: your favorite operating systems in one place

netboot.xyz

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Re: Netboot.xyz: your favorite operating systems in one place

#51

Post by stuaxo »

csdvrx wrote: post #9
kej wrote: post #7

Another neat "pick an OS to boot into" tool I discovered recently is Ventoy [1]. You install the bootable menu on your USB drive, and then you just drop ISOs or IMGs on there to add choices. [1] https://ventoy.net/en/index.html

Not bad, but with questionable choices making it not usable on a dedicated hard-drive partition: https://github.com/ventoy/Ventoy/issues/1342

I took the time to read the comments on the issue and I can't see anyone refusing to do this.

It seems like the person that suggested it can't compile ventoy as it requires a particular version of fedora.

This needs somebody to compile ventoy and make a PR.

Tabgentially it seems like the solving the issue where it needs an old version of fedora would make it easier for others to participate.

The best way of moving this forward would be to free up a block of time and either work on a PR, or if not that a PR to make ventoy compilable on more distros.

Re: Netboot.xyz: your favorite operating systems in one place

#52

Post by shantnutiwari »

kej wrote: post #7

Another neat "pick an OS to boot into" tool I discovered recently is Ventoy [1]. You install the bootable menu on your USB drive, and then you just drop ISOs or IMGs on there to add choices. [1] https://ventoy.net/en/index.html

Ventoy is one of those "Great in theory, doesnt work in practice" tools.

I spent some trying to boot from it, couldn't get it work. Couldnt find any help anywhere, so went back to the old boring tools that just work.

Re: Netboot.xyz: your favorite operating systems in one place

#53

Post by yownie »

jordanbeiber wrote: post #48
colechristensen wrote: post #26

PXE is one of those great old technologies which always excited me. I got the opportunity very early on to build an automated system to allow developers to install fresh operating systems to test on machines in the datacenter by filling out a web form which resulted in a hands-free install the next time they rebooted the target system. I've wanted to replicate that kind of thing at home or work ever since but with cl…

I’ve spent a lot of time doing that stuff at reasonable scale, now more than 20 years ago. Lot of fun! When discovering gpxe/ipxe it got real interesting - now we could make web calls in pxe boot mode that let us automatically select os image based on asset tag from our cmdb. Role based app deployments to servers, and app streamed to clients. Those were the days… We built ci/cd not even knowing it was a thing. When c…

>pxe boot mode that let us automatically select os image based on asset tag from our cmdb.

This is actually how we were booting our linux cluster nodes for the ATLAS project for the LHC while I worked at a physics lab.

Re: Netboot.xyz: your favorite operating systems in one place

#54

Post by yownie »

theantonym wrote: post #17
abeyer wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

~Given that it's already there (and presumably maintained) in the github readme, it might make sense to also provide this info on the docs site.~ Nevermind, I'd found the github link first, not sure how I missed it on the site. What's the state of arm64 booting like? Last I looked at early boot process on arm (which was admittedly a while ago) it was kind of a mess w/o a broadly adopted standard like uefi and every p…

Most of my testing was just allocating an ARM machine on Equinix Metal as I didn't have much ARM hardware to test or qualify on. I've also gotten the bootloader and menu to work with an RPI4 but loading operating systems on one was a bit more challenging given reduced memory on the hardware.

Maybe its worth reaching out to Eben and Liz at the raspberry pi foundation to develop better support for this.

Seems like it would benefit both parties.

Re: Netboot.xyz: your favorite operating systems in one place

#55

Post by SahAssar »

shantnutiwari wrote: post #52
kej wrote: post #7

Another neat "pick an OS to boot into" tool I discovered recently is Ventoy [1]. You install the bootable menu on your USB drive, and then you just drop ISOs or IMGs on there to add choices. [1] https://ventoy.net/en/index.html

Ventoy is one of those "Great in theory, doesnt work in practice" tools. I spent some trying to boot from it, couldn't get it work. Couldnt find any help anywhere, so went back to the old boring tools that just work.

I'm not sure what your issue was, but I've used ventoy across 5-ish computers and with multiple OS'es (various linux distros and win10) and never had an issue. Did you file a bug report or find out what the issue was?

Re: Netboot.xyz: your favorite operating systems in one place

#56

Post by guilamu »

shantnutiwari wrote: post #52
kej wrote: post #7

Another neat "pick an OS to boot into" tool I discovered recently is Ventoy [1]. You install the bootable menu on your USB drive, and then you just drop ISOs or IMGs on there to add choices. [1] https://ventoy.net/en/index.html

Ventoy is one of those "Great in theory, doesnt work in practice" tools. I spent some trying to boot from it, couldn't get it work. Couldnt find any help anywhere, so went back to the old boring tools that just work.

I don't know how you managed not to be able to make it work. I've been using it on dozens of pcs, never had any issue.

Re: Netboot.xyz: your favorite operating systems in one place

#57

Post by gsich »

shantnutiwari wrote: post #52
kej wrote: post #7

Another neat "pick an OS to boot into" tool I discovered recently is Ventoy [1]. You install the bootable menu on your USB drive, and then you just drop ISOs or IMGs on there to add choices. [1] https://ventoy.net/en/index.html

Ventoy is one of those "Great in theory, doesnt work in practice" tools. I spent some trying to boot from it, couldn't get it work. Couldnt find any help anywhere, so went back to the old boring tools that just work.

Also great in practice.

Re: Netboot.xyz: your favorite operating systems in one place

#58

Post by snvzz »

kayson wrote: post #45
1vuio0pswjnm7 wrote: post #39

Saw this in 2016. Six years later, still no NetBSD.

Sounds like the maintainer had some issues with memdisk: https://github.com/netbootxyz/netboot.xyz/discussions/926

Why would they try to use memdisk in the first place?

https://wiki.netbsd.org/tutorials/how_to_install__40__boot__...

I've done this successfully (locally).

Re: Netboot.xyz: your favorite operating systems in one place

#59

Post by dsr_ »

hnlmorg wrote: post #27
dsr_ wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's why a serious user sets up their own server, serves the images that they have selected and checked, and doesn't serve outside of their known netspace.

I did that for a while but keeping images up to date was a chore I’d often forget to do then regret not doing once I needed it. Sure I could probably automate it with a little effort but instead I switched to this service and have been running with it for a few years now without any issues. While I know there is a risk involved, pragmatically that risk is very low given I’m just an anonymous individual very occasiona…

The risk wouldn't be someone deliberately targetting you: the risk would be someone deciding that this is an excellent vector to gain backdoor root access on many random machines.

Re: Netboot.xyz: your favorite operating systems in one place

#60

Post by hnlmorg »

dsr_ wrote: post #59
hnlmorg wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I did that for a while but keeping images up to date was a chore I’d often forget to do then regret not doing once I needed it. Sure I could probably automate it with a little effort but instead I switched to this service and have been running with it for a few years now without any issues. While I know there is a risk involved, pragmatically that risk is very low given I’m just an anonymous individual very occasiona…

The risk wouldn't be someone deliberately targetting you: the risk would be someone deciding that this is an excellent vector to gain backdoor root access on many random machines.

I wasn’t suggesting I would be personally targetted. I was stating that the infrequency and low criticality of my usage vastly narrows the risk of getting exposed to the attack.

Hence my point that if I were using this regularly then I might want to invest in a more secure mirror. But when it can be years between my usages the benefits of self hosting are vastly outweighed but the cost (both in time and electricity) of managing it. Thus I’m willing to take that slight risk in this specific instance.

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