/netboot.xyz

Network bootable operating system installer based on iPXE

Primary LanguageShellApache License 2.0Apache-2.0

netboot.xyz

Build Status Discord Release

netboot.xyz menu

Bootloader Downloads

Legacy (PCBIOS) iPXE Bootloaders

Type Bootloader Description
ISO netboot.xyz.iso Used for CD/DVD, Virtual CDs, DRAC/iLO, VMware, Virtual Box
USB netboot.xyz.usb Used for creation of USB Keys
Kernel netboot.xyz.lkrn Used for booting from GRUB/EXTLINUX
Floppy netboot.xyz.dsk Virtual floppy disk for DRAC/iLO, VMware, Virtual Box, etc
DHCP netboot.xyz.kpxe DHCP boot image file, uses built-in iPXE NIC drivers
DHCP-undionly netboot.xyz-undionly.kpxe DHCP boot image file, use if you have NIC issues

UEFI iPXE Bootloaders

Type Bootloader Description
ISO netboot.xyz-efi.iso Used for CD/DVD, Virtual CDs, DRAC/iLO, VMware, Virtual Box
USB netboot.xyz-efi.usb Used for creation of USB Keys
DHCP netboot.xyz.efi DHCP boot image file, uses built-in iPXE NIC drivers
DHCP-snp netboot.xyz-snp.efi EFI w/ Simple Network Protocol, attempts to boot all net devices
DHCP-snponly netboot.xyz-snponly.efi EFI w/ Simple Network Protocol, only boots from device chained from

SHA256 checksums are generated during each build of iPXE and are located here. You can also view the scripts that are embedded into the images here.

What is netboot.xyz?

netboot.xyz is a convenient place to boot into any type of operating system or utility disk without the need of having to go spend time retrieving the ISO just to run it. iPXE is used to provide a user friendly menu from within the BIOS that lets you easily choose the operating system you want along with any specific types of versions or bootable flags.

If you already have iPXE up and running on the network, you can hit netboot.xyz at anytime by typing:

chain --autofree https://boot.netboot.xyz/ipxe/netboot.xyz.lkrn

or when in EFI mode:

chain --autofree https://boot.netboot.xyz/ipxe/netboot.xyz.efi

This will load the appropriate netboot.xyz kernel with all of the proper options enabled.

Documentation

See netboot.xyz for all documentation. Some links to get started with are:

If you'd like to contribute to the documentation, the netboot.xyz documentation is located at netboot.xyz-docs.

Self Hosting netboot.xyz

For those users who want to deploy their own netboot.xyz environment, you can leverage the same scripts that are used to deploy the hosted environment. The source scripts are all Ansible templates and can be generated and customized to your preference.

Please see the self-hosting docs for more information but in short:

Deploying using Ansible

To generate, run:

ansible-playbook -i inventory site.yml

The build output will be located in /var/www/html by default.

Deploying with Docker

docker build -t localbuild -f Dockerfile-build .
docker run --rm -it -v $(pwd):/buildout localbuild

The build output will be in the generated folder buildout

Local Overrides

Ansible will handle source generation as well as iPXE disk generation with your settings. It will generate Legacy (PCBIOS) and UEFI iPXE disks that can be used to load into your netboot.xyz environment. If you want to override the defaults, you can put overrides in user_overrides.yml. See user_overrides.yml for examples.

Using the overrides file, you can override all of the settings from the defaults/main.yml so that you can easily change the boot mirror URLs when the menus are rendered. If you prefer to do this after the fact, you can also edit the boot.cfg to make changes, but keep in mind those changes will not be saved when you redeploy the menu.

Self Hosted Custom Options

In addition to being able to host netboot.xyz locally, you can also create your own custom templates for custom menus within netboot.xyz. Please see Custom User Menus for more information.

What Operating Systems are currently available on netboot.xyz?

Operating Systems

Name URL Installer Kernel Live OS
Alpine Linux https://alpinelinux.org Yes No
Anarchy Linux https://www.anarchylinux.org Yes No
Arch Linux https://www.archlinux.org Yes No
Backbox https://www.backbox.org No Yes
BlackArch Linux https://blackarch.org Yes Yes
Bluestar Linux https://sourceforge.net/projects/bluestarlinux No Yes
Bodhi Linux https://www.bodhilinux.com No Yes
CentOS https://centos.org Yes No
CoreOS http://coreos.com/ Yes No
Debian https://debian.org Yes Yes
Deepin https://www.deepin.org No Yes
Devuan https://devuan.org Yes No
Elementary OS https://elementary.io No Yes
Fatdog64 https://distro.ibiblio.org/fatdog/web/ No Yes
Fedora https://fedoraproject.org Yes Yes
Feren OS https://ferenos.weebly.com/ Yes No
Flatcar Linux https://www.flatcar-linux.org Yes No
FreeBSD https://freebsd.org Yes, disk image No
FreeDOS http://www.freedos.org ISO - Memdisk No
Gentoo https://gentoo.org Yes Yes
IPFire https://www.ipfire.org Yes No
Kali Linux https://www.kali.org Yes Yes
KDE Neon https://neon.kde.org No Yes
Kodachi https://www.digi77.com/linux-kodachi/ No Yes
Linux Lite https://www.linuxliteos.com No Yes
LXLE https://lxle.net/ No Yes
Mageia https://www.mageia.org Yes No
Manjaro https://manjaro.org No Yes
Mint https://linuxmint.com No Yes
Microsoft Windows https://www.microsoft.com User supplied media No
MirOS https://www.mirbsd.org Yes No
Nitrux https://nxos.org/ No Yes
NixOS https://nixos.org Yes No
OpenBSD https://openbsd.org Yes No
OpenSUSE https://opensuse.org Yes No
Oracle Linux https://www.oracle.com/linux/ Yes Installer
Parrot Security https://www.parrotsec.org Yes Yes
Peppermint https://peppermintos.com No Yes
Pop OS https://system76.com/pop No Yes
Q4OS https://q4os.org No Yes
Raizo https://sourceforge.net/projects/live-raizo/ No Yes
RancherOS https://rancher.com/rancher-os Yes No
Red Hat Enterprise Linux https://www.redhat.com User supplied media No
Regolith https://regolith-linux.org No Yes
Scientific Linux https://scientificlinux.org Yes No
Septor https://septor.sourceforge.io No Yes
Slackware https://www.slackware.com Yes No
SmartOS https://www.joyent.com/smartos Yes No
SparkyLinux https://sparkylinux.org/ No Yes
Tiny Core Linux https://tinycorelinux.net Yes Yes
Ubuntu https://www.ubuntu.com Yes Yes
Velt https://velt.io/ No Yes
Voyager https://voyagerlive.org No Yes
Zen Installer https://sourceforge.net/projects/revenge-installer Yes No
Zorin OS https://zorinos.com No Yes

Utilities

Name URL Type
4MLinux https://4mlinux.com/ Kernel/Initrd
ALT Linux Rescue https://en.altlinux.org/Rescue ISO - Memdisk
BakAndImgCD https://bakandimgcd.4mlinux.com/ Kernel/Initrd
Boot Repair CD https://sourceforge.net/projects/boot-repair-cd/ LiveCD
Breakin http://www.advancedclustering.com/products/software/breakin/ Kernel/Initrd
CAINE https://www.caine-live.net/ LiveCD
Clonezilla http://www.clonezilla.org/ LiveCD
DBAN http://www.dban.org/ Kernel
GParted http://gparted.org LiveCD
Grml http://grml.org LiveCD
Kaspersky Rescue Disk https://support.kaspersky.com/viruses/krd18 LiveCD
Memtest http://www.memtest.org/ Kernel
Rescatux https://www.supergrubdisk.org/rescatux/ LiveCD
Super Grub2 Disk http://www.supergrubdisk.org ISO - Memdisk
System Rescue CD http://www.system-rescue-cd.org/ LiveCD
The Smallest Server Suite https://thesss.4mlinux.com/ Kernel/Initrd
Ultimate Boot CD http://www.ultimatebootcd.com ISO - Memdisk

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