NAME

       mklnim - make Linux Netinstall Image

SYNOPSIS

       mklnim outputfile [path-to-cdrom]

DESCRIPTION

       mklnim  is  a  shell script that takes a SuSE, TurboLinux or a RedHat CDROM, or equivalent
       disk directory, and creates a network bootable image (NBI) that can be used with Etherboot
       (http://etherboot.sourceforge.net/)   or  Netboot  (http://www.han.de/~gero/netboot.html).
       This NBI, when booted via the network, will make the target computer behave just as  if  a
       CDROM  boot  (TurboLinux),  or  a  floppy  boot  (RedHat  and  SuSE) had been selected.  A
       conventional install can be done from this point onwards.

       There are several occasions when this technique is useful: 1. It can be  used  to  quickly
       boot a target computer when the floppy loading is very slow. 2. In the case of TurboLinux,
       it loads the CDROM initial ramdisk which does not require any further floppy  loading.  In
       the  case  of  RedHat, it only loads the floppy initial ramdisk which does not contain the
       material in the supplementary floppy, and may require more floppy insertion.   3.  It  can
       start  the  install  from a floppy of any size, not just 1.4 MB, or even from a floppyless
       machine, if one has a boot ROM (providing no further floppy access is  required).   4.  It
       could be used as part of an automatic installation process.

       Naturally,  all  this assumes that the infrastructure for diskless booting (bootp and tftp
       servers) has been set up.

BUGS

       If supplementary floppies are required, this script doesn't include that material  in  the
       network boot image. Please feel welcome to fix this problem.

SEE ALSO

       Etherboot tutorial at http://etherboot.sourceforge.net/

COPYRIGHT

       mklnim is under the GNU Public License

AUTHOR

       Ken Yap (ken_yap@users.sourceforge.net)

DATE

       Version 0.4 April 2000

                                          25 April 2000                                 MKLNIM(1)