# Preparing Files for TFTP Net Booting

If your machine is connected to a local area network, you may be able to boot it over the network from another machine, using TFTP. If you intend to boot the installation system from another machine, the boot files will need to be placed in specific locations on that machine, and the machine configured to support booting of your specific machine.

You need to set up a TFTP server, and for many machines a DHCP server, or RARP server, or BOOTP server.

The Reverse Address Resolution Protocol (RARP) is one way to tell your client what IP address to use for itself. Another way is to use the BOOTP protocol. BOOTP is an IP protocol that informs a computer of its IP address and where on the network to obtain a boot image. The DHCP (Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol) is a more flexible, backwards-compatible extension of BOOTP. Some systems can only be configured via DHCP.

The Trivial File Transfer Protocol (TFTP) is used to serve the boot image to the client. Theoretically, any server, on any platform, which implements these protocols, may be used. In the examples in this section, we shall provide commands for SunOS 4.x, SunOS 5.x (a.k.a. Solaris), and GNU/Linux.

For a &debian-gnu; server we recommend `tftpd-hpa`. It's written by the same author as the `syslinux` bootloader and is therefore least likely to cause issues. A good alternative is `atftpd`.

&tftp-rarp.xml; &tftp-dhcp.xml; &tftp-bootp.xml;

## Enabling the TFTP Server

To get the TFTP server ready to go, you should first make sure that `tftpd` is enabled.

In the case of `tftpd-hpa` there are two ways the service can be run. It can be started on demand by the system's `inetd` daemon, or it can be set up to run as an independent daemon. Which of these methods is used is selected when the package is installed and can be changed by reconfiguring the package.

Historically, TFTP servers used `/tftpboot` as directory to serve images from. However, &debian-gnu; packages may use other directories to comply with the Filesystem Hierarchy Standard. For example, `tftpd-hpa` by default uses `/srv/tftp`. You may have to adjust the configuration examples in this section accordingly.

All `in.tftpd` alternatives available in &debian; should log TFTP requests to the system logs by default. Some of them support a `-v` argument to increase verbosity. It is recommended to check these log messages in case of boot problems as they are a good starting point for diagnosing the cause of errors.

## Move TFTP Images Into Place

Next, place the TFTP boot image you need, as found in where-files, in the `tftpd` boot image directory. You may have to make a link from that file to the file which `tftpd` will use for booting a particular client. Unfortunately, the file name is determined by the TFTP client, and there are no strong standards.

For PXE booting, everything you should need is set up in the `netboot/netboot.tar.gz` tarball. Simply extract this tarball into the `tftpd` boot image directory. Make sure your dhcp server is configured to pass `pxelinux.0` to `tftpd` as the filename to boot. For UEFI machines, you will need to pass an appropriate EFI boot image name (such as `/debian-installer/amd64/bootnetx64.efi`).