I'm experimenting with a method of booting bare-metal systems by connecting a local drive from my laptop to target hardware via USB-OTG. The BIOS recognizes the connected drive as a physical one, allowing the operating system to run just as if the drive were physically installed inside the system. All I/O operations are handled over the network, giving the illusion that the drive is present on the hardware itself.
Currently, I'm utilizing a USB 2.0 connection which offers about 35-40 MB/s theoretically, backed by an internal RAM cache that enhances speed and reduces latency for frequent reads. With a potential upgrade to USB 3.0/3.1, I expect speeds could rival a local SSD, particularly since I'm using QUIC to manage any network instability.
I can load a ready-made OS or a full environment from various virtual machine formats. Changes are saved in overlays on the client machine without altering the original image. I've started testing with a variety of file systems and so far, everything appears stable. For what bare-metal installation, recovery, and testing scenarios do you see this approach being beneficial?
3 Answers
Your approach does sound versatile! From my experience, using PXE allows for much faster data transfers, especially with 1 or 10 gigabit Ethernet, leading to images being loaded in mere seconds. However, you're right—setting up PXE can be a one-time hassle, but once established, it’s extremely efficient. If the goal is to avoid building a PXE setup, your USB bridge solution might be the way to go for quick hardware resuscitation in the field.
I've tried both iSCSI and NBD for system recovery. While USB emulation seems like the less complicated approach since it doesn't involve PXE configurations, I find that when I do need to use iSCSI, it generally works well for larger recoveries. However, for everyday use, accessing images via NFS or SMB often suffices. It's always good to have multiple tools in your toolkit!
This setup seems similar to running a PXE server but with more flexibility since it also handles hardware directly. While your method saves the hassle of configuring PXE servers—which can be tedious—it's important to note that if you're solely booting through a USB interface, you still need to ensure the target system's BIOS can see and boot from it. The performance might also be limited by USB speeds compared to a well-configured PXE setup using gigabit or faster networking. However, it's a cool alternative for some situations where you need quick deployment on the go!
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