iVentoy

[watersb]

Original Ventoy is a boot utility - a shim that boots ISO image files.

You run the included script, it installs onto the USB thumb drive you select, and then you can copy ISO images to the USB filesystem.

Each ISO automatically becomes a GRUB boot menu option.

This thing is fantastic.

iVentoy is the same idea, over a local network. PXE is a very old and pervasive standard for booting a computer by discovering a special network file server.

You wouldn't need a thumb drive at all - the client is in the BIOS of the motherboard and network interface.

Original idea dates from a time when mass storage - more than a few megabytes - was too expensive to install in each workstation, and we ran everything, including OS system files, on the file server. And we liked it.

[jaclaz]

>You wouldn't need a thumb drive at all - the client is in the BIOS of the motherboard and network interface.

>Original idea dates from a time when mass storage - more than a few megabytes - was too expensive to install in each workstation, and we ran everything, including OS system files, on the file server.

To be fair, in those times most people had "bare" network cards and needed to add an Eprom to it to add the PXE extension.

BIOSes (and integrated network cards) with PXE booting capabilities came much later, when local storage (within limits) wasn't anymore that much expensive.

But, yes, ... kids today ...

[jwiz]

How is the ISO image presented to the booting machine via the network?

Usually it's not too hard to load kernel/initrd from an ISO via ipxe/http, but then they need to have a way to see the ISO themselves.

[quincepie]

Ventoy is one software that I always recommend to my peers. The ability to just throw the isos into a flash drive and have them work with no problem and no flashing (except for the initial Ventoy flash) makes installing OSs so much easier. The first thing i do when i get a flash drive is to install Ventoy on it.

I have used iPXE for a while but it bothered me that the setup is a bit difficult especially not being able to load ISOs directly. It made me wish that Ventoy was a PXE compatible. Now that iVentoy exists, this would make my life so much easier

[askiiart]

Does anyone know of an open-source alternative to this?

I've been looking for a piece of software like this for a while, but I'm not gonna run software with full, unrestricted root (and internet) access unless the source code is available, or it's at least highly trusted.

[unqueued]

I actually have something I've been meaning to put on github. I wrote it over a decade ago and I need to dockerize it. I only made it in Vagrant.

But it can do something iVentoy can not.

https://www.iventoy.com/en/faq.html:

   The computer which run iVentoy must be in the same LAN with them.
   Besides, there must no other DHCP servers in the same LAN.

It can coexist with an existing DHCP server. That means you can just start it up on your own network without any modifications, and start netbooting machines.

It turns out that multiple DHCP servers can co-exist on the same network segment. So I just have a second dhcp server solely for a pxe bootstrapper. At the time, at least the initial download must be tftp, but I used a stripped down ipxe stub that took advantage of the universal undi network drivers, and then loaded the rest (usually syslinux) over a fast HTTPS connection.

From there, iSCSI was no problem, and I could also use tools like plop, memdisk, or grub4dos, as well as Windows 7/8/10 with wimboot.

I remember for some distros like Knoppix, we would use an NBI driver to just mount the iso directly over the network, which could be far simpler and more performant than NFS.

EDIT: To be honest, it is simple enough that it doesn't have to use Docker. It is mostly dnsmasq and PHP.

[gh02t]

https://netboot.xyz/

[simonjgreen]

ipxe https://ipxe.org/

netboot https://netboot.xyz/ makes use of ipxe underneath

[arjvik]

Shame that iVentoy is not open source, but I understand that the author of Ventoy needs a revenue stream for producing such useful software.

[zymhan]

I think DRBL can do this

https://drbl.org/

[WirelessGigabit]

I tried netboot.xyz but their IPv6 support in 2023 is still broken...

https://github.com/netbootxyz/netboot.xyz/issues/283

Let's try this one.

[mobilio]

I have same issue here. Also OpenWRT and IPv6 support.

[jaclaz]

From the Author of Ventoy, a new tool for lan/PXE booting.

[nuodag]

This looks very cool, but no secure boot means i won’t be able to use it at work.

(from the faq:)

> Does iVentoy support secure boot?

> NO. In UEFI mode you must disable secure boot in the BIOS before use iVentoy

[getcrunk]

As another commenter pointed out NetBoot.xyz is open source

[alpenbazi]

if it works as good as ventoy it will be the go-to solution

[xen2xen1]

The second I see ISCSI I'm in.

[trillic]

Can I run this on my router with a USB flash drive?

[geek_at]

probably easier to use netboot.xyz (https://netboot.xyz/docs)

[kiririn]

I’m probably missing out on a great tool, but such a low level application being produce of the hundred acre wood gives me the heebie jeebies. Not to mention it being closed source, regardless of origin!

[derelicta]

ahah I discovered this tool yesterday as I sought to reinstall W11 on my school laptop from debian. Pleasently surprised it (nearly) worked right away; just forgot to disable SecureBoot before anything