System for and method of network booting of an operating system to a client computer using hibernation
A system for and method of network booting of an operating system (O/S) on one or more client devices, such as personal computers (PC's), employing a hibernation image. Remote booting of sets of client devices is facilitated by employing virtual disk emulation and, in certain preferred embodiments, broadcasting or multicasting of data residing on a network server which is necessary to appropriately boot and configure the one or more client devices, the data including hibernation, O/S and application files.
1. A method for streaming an operating system to one or more client devices from a server on a network, the method comprising:
identifying, by a pre-boot execution environment service executing on the one or more client devices, a first server having an address of a virtual boot drive resident on the network;
detecting, by the pre-boot execution environment service, the virtual boot drive having a hibernation file with operating system data;
establishing, with pre-boot execution code, a virtual drive connection between the one or more client devices and the virtual boot drive;
receiving, from the virtual boot drive, a requested master boot record;
executing the master boot record on the one or more client devices, the master boot record issuing a read request to the virtual boot drive for an operating system loader and issuing a write request to the virtual boot drive;
receiving, from the virtual boot drive in response to the read request, the operating system loader;
caching write requests issued during execution of the master boot record to prevent the write requests from being committed to the virtual boot drive to preserve the state of the virtual boot drive;
loading, by the operating system loader, the hibernation file downloaded from the virtual boot drive responsive to the read requests issued by the master boot record code;
activating, with the operating system, each of a storage driver and a network filter driver; and
storing, in cache memory, read and write requests issued by the operating system;
initializing, by the operating system, the network filter driver and a network interface card driver; and
retrieving from cache memory, by the storage driver, each of the stored read and write requests, the retrieval of the read and write requests restoring the operating system via the loaded hibernation file.
2. The method of claim 1 , further comprising receiving requested data sectors, each data sector transmitted by the virtual boot drive to the one or more client devices.
3. The method of claim 2 , further comprising:
relaying, by the network filter driver, a portion of the requested data sectors to a storage driver; and
reading, by the operating system, the portion of the requested data sectors to initialize the network filter driver.
4. The method of claim 1 , wherein locating further comprises, locating a boot server on the network, the boot server associated with the virtual boot drive.
5. A system for streaming an operating system to one or more client devices from a server on a network, the method comprising:
means for identifying, by a pre-boot execution environment service executing on the one or more client devices, a first server having an address of a virtual boot drive resident on the network;
means for detecting, by the pre-boot execution environment service, the virtual boot drive having a hibernation file with operating system data;
means for establishing, with pre-boot execution code, a virtual drive connection between the one or more client devices and the virtual boot drive;
means for receiving, from the virtual boot drive, a requested master boot record;
means for executing the master boot record on the one or more client devices, the master boot record issuing a read request to the virtual boot drive for an operating system loader and issuing a write request to the virtual boot drive;
means for receiving, from the virtual boot drive in response to the read request, the operating system loader;
means for caching write requests issued during execution of the master boot record to prevent the write requests from being committed to the virtual boot drive to preserve the state of the virtual boot drive;
means for loading, by the operating system loader, the hibernation file downloaded from the virtual boot drive responsive to the read requests issued by the master boot record code;
means for activating, with the operating system, each of a storage driver and a network filter driver;
means for storing, in cache memory, read and write requests issued by the operating system;
means for initializing, by the operating system, the network filter driver and a network interface card driver; and
means for retrieving from cache memory, by the storage driver, each of the stored read and write requests, the retrieval of the read and write requests restoring the operating system via the loaded hibernation file.
6. The system of claim 5 , further comprising a means for receiving requested data sectors, each data sector transmitted by the virtual boot drive to the one or more client devices.
7. The system of claim 6 , further comprising:
means for relaying, by the network filter driver, a portion of the requested data sectors to a storage driver; and
means for reading, by the operating system, the portion of the requested data sectors to initialize the network filter driver.
8. The system of claim 5 , wherein a means for locating further comprises, means for locating a boot server on the network, the boot server associated with the virtual boot drive.