{"slug": "ipxe", "name": "iPXE", "category": "networking", "category_name": "Networking and VPN", "description": "", "recommenders": 3, "commenters": 5, "warners": 0, "score": 3.15, "rising": -0.98, "first": "2025-11-19", "latest": "2026-06-12", "why": "I would bet almost all vendors just use iPXE anyway", "why_is_quote": true, "has_verdict": false, "sentiment": {"recommend": 3, "neutral": 2, "compare": 0, "warn": 0}, "spark": [1, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 2, 0, 0, 0, 0], "listed": true, "loved": [], "caveat": "", "short_quote": "I would bet almost all vendors just use iPXE anyway", "kind": "", "icon": true, "domain": "ipxe.org", "github_repo": null, "official_url": "https://ipxe.org/", "pricing": "", "aliases": ["iPXE"], "verdict": null, "praise": [{"label": "", "summary": "", "quotes": [{"id": 776117792, "item_id": 48507362, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48507362", "by": "nijave", "date": "2026-06-12", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "You could bypass that by shipping iPXE on USB tho", "excerpt": "There's still the tftp->ipxe->http->??? path. TFTP only needs to serve a 300kb file which can then switch to more robust transport like http for the kernel/OS You could bypass that by shipping iPXE on USB tho On metal you also commonly have a BMC so generally that lets you attach an ISO or other storage you can boot from to bypass UEFI primitive PXE. This is probably the biggest one--use BMC functionality instead of ", "context": "", "use_case": "network booting", "switched_from": "", "story": "Introduction to UEFI HTTP(s) Boot with QEMU/OVMF"}, {"id": 776117168, "item_id": 48507323, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48507323", "by": "zcw100", "date": "2026-06-12", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "You can use iPXE https://ipxe.org/", "excerpt": "You can use iPXE https://ipxe.org/", "context": "", "use_case": "Network booting", "switched_from": "", "story": "Introduction to UEFI HTTP(s) Boot with QEMU/OVMF"}, {"id": 735720688, "item_id": 45982543, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45982543", "by": "nyrikki", "date": "2025-11-19", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I would bet almost all vendors just use iPXE anyway", "excerpt": "> The one thing I couldn't make work was the OEM installation, where you put everything down onto the system unattended then put the user through the Ubuntu OOBE process. Did you try chain booting into iPXE and using SYSLINUX? I used just nginx try, where I could place a pressed for a known provisioning event, otherwise providing various live and utility images if the MAC address file didn\u2019t exist for one off or emer", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Learning to Boot from PXE"}]}], "caveats": [], "who": [], "tags": [], "use_cases": ["network booting", "network booting robots"], "compared": [], "makers": [], "threads": [{"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48504929", "title": "Introduction to UEFI HTTP(s) Boot with QEMU/OVMF", "mentions": 2}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48045012", "title": "Diskless Linux boot using ZFS, iSCSI and PXE", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46457770", "title": "Linux is good now; to feel like you actually own your PC, put Linux on it", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45978245", "title": "Learning to Boot from PXE", "mentions": 1}], "sentiment_by_month": {"2025-11": {"recommend": 1}, "2025-12": {}, "2026-01": {"neutral": 1}, "2026-02": {}, "2026-03": {}, "2026-04": {}, "2026-05": {"neutral": 1}, "2026-06": {"recommend": 2}, "2026-07": {}, "2026-08": {}, "2026-09": {}, "2026-10": {}}, "quotes": [{"id": 776117792, "item_id": 48507362, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48507362", "by": "nijave", "date": "2026-06-12", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "You could bypass that by shipping iPXE on USB tho", "excerpt": "There's still the tftp->ipxe->http->??? path. TFTP only needs to serve a 300kb file which can then switch to more robust transport like http for the kernel/OS You could bypass that by shipping iPXE on USB tho On metal you also commonly have a BMC so generally that lets you attach an ISO or other storage you can boot from to bypass UEFI primitive PXE. This is probably the biggest one--use BMC functionality instead of ", "context": "", "use_case": "network booting", "switched_from": "", "story": "Introduction to UEFI HTTP(s) Boot with QEMU/OVMF"}, {"id": 776117168, "item_id": 48507323, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48507323", "by": "zcw100", "date": "2026-06-12", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "You can use iPXE https://ipxe.org/", "excerpt": "You can use iPXE https://ipxe.org/", "context": "", "use_case": "Network booting", "switched_from": "", "story": "Introduction to UEFI HTTP(s) Boot with QEMU/OVMF"}, {"id": 768733056, "item_id": 48045816, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48045816", "by": "tehlike", "date": "2026-05-06", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I used similar ipxe setup for robotic cluster", "excerpt": "I used similar ipxe setup for robotic cluster - every robot booted from the same thing, then kubernetes managed the containe orchestration. it was fun.", "context": "", "use_case": "network booting robots", "switched_from": "", "story": "Diskless Linux boot using ZFS, iSCSI and PXE"}, {"id": 745010561, "item_id": 46563160, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46563160", "by": "hackernudes", "date": "2026-01-09", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I upgraded my home network and am booting over iscsi using ipxe.", "excerpt": "Do you still have the details details about fixing Windows 11 boot over iscsi? I love the idea of injecting drivers into windows and did a lot of experimenting along those lines (using WinPE to install drivers offline and edit the registry). I upgraded my home network and am booting over iscsi using ipxe. My only two remaining issues are: - Windows 11 25H2 fails to boot since 26200.7019 (and 24H2 since 26100.7019). -", "context": "", "use_case": "Network booting", "switched_from": "", "story": "Linux is good now; to feel like you actually own your PC, put Linux on it"}, {"id": 735720688, "item_id": 45982543, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45982543", "by": "nyrikki", "date": "2025-11-19", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I would bet almost all vendors just use iPXE anyway", "excerpt": "> The one thing I couldn't make work was the OEM installation, where you put everything down onto the system unattended then put the user through the Ubuntu OOBE process. Did you try chain booting into iPXE and using SYSLINUX? I used just nginx try, where I could place a pressed for a known provisioning event, otherwise providing various live and utility images if the MAC address file didn\u2019t exist for one off or emer", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Learning to Boot from PXE"}]}