ZNETBOOT

ZNETBOOT EXEC runs in VM/CMS and gets you started quickly Linux using no other media. It pulls a Linux kernel and a small memory based root filesystem directly from the web. Between these two files, it sandwiches a boot parameters file, feeding all three  to “spool space” on your z/VM system. Finally, it attempts to IPL the (virtual) card deck. 

ZNETBOOT EXEC requires CURL REXX to perform the web content retrieval. You will need to download both scripts from the web and upload them to your CMS virtual machine, or retrieve and unpack ZNETBOOT VMARC. Once you have both ZNETBOOT EXEC and CURL REXX, there are no additional scripts to manually download/upload. You will need to create <vmid> ZNETBOOT (a boot parameters file) as described below. 

Your virtual machine has an identity. In z/VM terms it is a user. By default, ZNETBOOT uses the name of your virtual machine as the name of the config file to read. (You can always name a specific config file to use.) 

You must create (or upload) <vmid> ZNETBOOT with the network info of your guest. 
Sample contents of LTROTH3 ZNETBOOT (a live example) … 

NORD_HOSTNAME=ltroth3.casita.net
NORD_IPV4AD=148.100.88.35
NORD_IPV4GW=148.100.88.1

These values get appended to other boot parameters when you run ‘ZNETBOOT’. The above configuration is a working example for a system with static addresses and a known IPv4 gateway. 

Once the kernel and initrd have been fetched , ZNETBOOT EXEC runs to successful IPL in as little as than 15 seconds or less. Speed of network retrieval varies widely from a few seconds to several minutes.