Booting FreeBSD over network or serial links?

[Gayn Winters]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-freebsd-questions at freebsd.org 
> [mailto:owner-freebsd-questions at freebsd.org] On Behalf Of iv gan
> Sent: Thursday, August 25, 2005 2:49 AM
> To: Glenn Dawson
> Cc: Sarath Kamisetty; freebsd-questions at freebsd.org
> Subject: Re: Booting FreeBSD over network or serial links?
> 
> 
> If your don't have pxe on your motherboard try the Etherboot.
> www.etherboot.org
> 
> greets
> 
> On 8/25/05, Glenn Dawson <glenn at antimatter.net> wrote:
> > At 05:54 PM 8/24/2005, Sarath Kamisetty wrote:
> > >Hi,
> > >
> > >I have two PCs, one with linux installed and another one 
> is a old PC.
> > >I would like use my linux pc to make modifications to freebsd code
> > >base and then test it on my old PC. After compiling 
> freebsd image on
> > >my linux pc, how do I boot this image on my old PC ? Is 
> there a cost
> > >effective way of doing this without using floppies or CDs which is
> > >time consuming ? Can I run some special image on my old PC 
> to let it
> > >fetch the newly compiled image everytime ?? Does anyone 
> have this kind
> > >of setup ? Can I setup a console server for cheap and 
> acheive this ?
> > >Please share your thoughts on this.
> > 
> > If you have an intel NIC which supports PXE, you can boot 
> the machine
> > from a kernel that's on another machine and shared by NFS or
> > tftp.  Take a look at the man page for pxeboot(8), as well as the
> > development(7) man page for some good info.
> > 
> > -Glenn

If you want a single ethernet cable between the two PC's you'll need to
make or buy a cross-over cable.
http://www.makeitsimple.com/how-to/dyi_crossover.htm

-gayn