Editing ISCSI (section)

===Network booting===
For general data storage on an already-booted computer, any type of generic network interface may be used to access iSCSI devices.{{Citation needed|date=November 2013}} However, a generic consumer-grade network interface is not able to boot a [[diskless]] computer from a remote iSCSI data source.{{Citation needed|date=November 2013}} Instead, it is commonplace for a server to load its initial operating system from a [[TFTP]] server or local boot device, and then use iSCSI for data storage once booting from the local device has finished.{{Citation needed|date=November 2013}}

A separate [[DHCP server]] may be configured to assist interfaces equipped with [[network boot]] capability to be able to boot over iSCSI. In this case, the network interface looks for a DHCP server offering a [[Preboot Execution Environment|PXE]] or [[bootp]] boot image.<ref>{{cite web| url=http://ipxe.org/howto/chainloading| title=Chainloading iPXE| access-date=2013-11-11| publisher=ipxe.org}}</ref> This is used to kick off the iSCSI remote boot process, using the booting network interface's [[MAC address]] to direct the computer to the correct iSCSI boot target{{Citation needed|date=November 2013}}. One can then use a software-only approach to load a small boot program which can in turn mount a remote iSCSI target as if it was a local SCSI drive and then fire the boot process from said iSCSI target{{Citation needed|date=November 2013}}. This can be achieved using an existing [[Preboot Execution Environment]] (PXE) boot ROM, which is available on many wired Ethernet adapters. The boot code can also be loaded from CD/DVD, floppy disk (or floppy disk image) and USB storage, or it can replace existing PXE boot code on adapters that can be re-flashed.<ref>{{cite web| url=http://ipxe.org/howto/romburning| title=Burning iPXE into ROM| access-date=2013-11-11| publisher=ipxe.org}}</ref> The most popular free software to offer iSCSI boot support is [[iPXE]].<ref>{{cite web| url=http://ipxe.org/start| title=iPXE - Open Source Boot Firmware| access-date=2013-11-11| publisher=ipxe.org}}</ref>

Most Intel Ethernet controllers for servers support iSCSI boot.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ethernet-controllers/ethernet-controllers.html |title=Intel Ethernet Controllers |publisher=Intel.com |access-date=2012-09-18}}</ref>