2. How does it work?

1. Diskless computer (DC) broadcasts MAC address with bootp: Who am I?
2. Bootp or DHCP server on S looks up DB: Your IP address is X.X.X.X, your server is S, your boot file is vmlinuz.myname, etc.
3. DC asks to load file from TFTP server on S: Please give me vmlinuz.myname
4. S: Here you are (/tftpdir/vmlinuz.myname)

   DC thinks a while (booting Linux).

5. DC: Please let me mount / with NFS
6. S: Here is your root FS (/tftpboot/IPnumber). (In 2.2 kernels, /tftpboot/domainname.)
7. DC: Please let me mount other NFSes (/usr, /home/, etc)
8. S: Here you are
9. DC: Runs intended application

Network boot ROM contains code to do 1 and 3.