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Is it possible to implement iPXE on an EC2 instance so that it boots from an image stored in S3 (preferably) or from an image stored on another EC2 instance?

Paul Roub
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cmorris14
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2 Answers2

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There is indeed no support in iPXE for AWS EC2 PV instances but iPXE can be use with AWS EC2 HVM instances.

For more information: http://forum.ipxe.org/showthread.php?tid=7913

patlachance
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No. iPXE and the more general class of PVS mechanisms require low-level (often Hypervisor) level access to the server in order to 'squirt' a boot image to the VM. This is not available in EC2, and in fact I'm not sure any public cloud service would allow it since a rogue operation at that level could compromise everything on the host.

Eight-Bit Guru
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    I agree the hypervisor would need to have a virtual PXE client which grabs the image and boots it (and most clouds wouldn't allow the non-IP network traffic that I think PXE requires), but why would that make the host vulnerable in any way? – Dan Oct 29 '15 at 03:07
  • iPXE is working on AWS EC2 HVM instances as described @patlachance, however, it seems there is an issue with the netblock driver in the kernel since once the kernel is loaded the userland has no network connectivity. :( – galaxy Jan 23 '20 at 12:49