znetboot

ZNETBOOT makes it easy to bring up Linux on z/VM. Just enter the command znetboot from the CMS "Ready;" prompt.

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ZNETBOOT is designed to simplify things for those hosting Linux on z/VM who are unfamiliar with z/VM.

ZNETBOOT is intended to reduce the number of manual steps required to boot Linux on a VM/CMS system. It should make things much easier for non-VM and non-mainframe users. After more than two decades of Linux on z/VM, mainframe Linux should be at least this easy.

running znetboot

ZNETBOOT reads an installation file and retrieves the kernel and initrd indicated. Other statements in the installation file are passed to the kernel as boot parameters. For example, create and upload to CMS a file like ...

# the following are used by ZNETBOOT EXEC
ZNETBOOT_KERNEL=http://znetboot.casita.net/nord/image
ZNETBOOT_INITRD=http://znetboot.casita.net/nord/ramdisk.gz

# the following are used by the bootstrap and vary from Linux to Linux
HOSTNAME=mynord.mydomain.com
IPADDR=192.168.0.64
GATEWAY=192.168.0.1

Then enter znetboot from the CMS "Ready;" prompt. Next stop, Linux.

working znetboot distributions

Installers for the following Linux distributions are known to work with ZNETBOOT:

• ClefOS
• Alpine
• Debian
• Fedora
• Ubuntu
• NORD

Support for the following Linux distributions are wanted:

• SUSE (and/or OpenSUSE)
• CentOS
• Slack/390
• Gentoo
• Red Hat