Boot winxp from http server (by grub4dos and gPXE)

Hi guys,

Up coming to this post : http://reboot.pro/17394/

Today I did boot the winxp vhd image from an web server in my local LAN network. It works alot faster than traditional pxe method because it does use http instead of tftp (pxe) protocol.

For image about 211MB (after gzip), it took about less than a half minute for loading and booting the image.

At the server I used :
+ dnsmasq as dhcp and tftp server.
+ syslinux to provide gpxelinux module.
+ nginx as http server.

The pxelinux.cfg/default with boot entry :

LABEL gpxelinux

kernel http://192.168.100.254/grub.exe

initrd http://192.168.100.254/MiniXP350.gz

APPEND --config-file="map (rd)+1 (hd0); map --hook; chainloader (hd0,0)/ntldr"

And it works like a charm.

This model can incoperate with portable app and windows shadown copy to provide a full diskless environment winxp without using an iscsi heavy server.

You can see more steps indetail and screenshots here : http://www.linuxbyex...ttp-server.html

Hope it helpfull.

Cheers.