From foonas

How to TFTP boot foonas-iscsi for the Thecus N2100

Get Ready

Before being able to TFTP boot foonas-iscsi you currently need to compile foonas-iscsi as per the docs in the foonas-iscsi platform support page for your device.

Configure a tftp server on the machine you are installing on and enable it, also copy the foonas-iscsi file you downloaded/compiled earlier into the root of your tftp server. Before you do this ensure the machine you are to TFTP boot from has an IP address in the 192.168.1.x range, but not 192.168.1.100 as your n2100s RedBoot will use this as its IP when it starts up briefly.

In addition ensure you have the arping and telnet utilities available in your OS and that you have upgraded your n2100 to the latest stock firmware, this is so that you have a version of RedBoot that is telnet enabled.

Go

First ensure your n2100 is off and you completed all the tasks in Getting Ready above. On the machine you are installing from run the following command:

arping -f 192.168.1.100 && telnet 192.168.1.100 9000

Now be ready to press ctrl-c very quickly. RedBoot is preconfigured to give you a 3 second window to do this. Turn on your n2100 and watch for the prompt then press ctrl-c:

ARPING 192.168.1.100 from 192.168.1.99 eth0
Unicast reply from 192.168.1.100 [00:14:FD:10:4E:12]  1.916ms
Sent 37 probes (37 broadcast(s))
Received 1 response(s)
Trying 192.168.1.100...
Connected to 192.168.1.100.
Escape character is '^]'.
== Executing boot script in 2.400 seconds - enter ^C to abort
^C
RedBoot>

Configure RedBoot to use your workstations IP for tftp (in this case the workstation has the IP 192.168.1.99):

RedBoot> ip -h 192.168.1.99
IP: 192.168.1.100/255.255.255.0, Gateway: 0.0.0.0
Default server: 192.168.1.99, DNS server IP: 0.0.0.0

Load the file from your tftp server into RAM:

RedBoot> load -r zImage-2.6.24.4-n2100-20080504172250 -b 0x00800000
Using default protocol (TFTP)
Raw file loaded 0x00800000-0x00ddb683, assumed entry at 0x00800000

Boot the kernel:

RedBoot> exec

After a few seconds foonas-iscsi will boot and you can login via telnet with:

Username: root
Password: hydr0g3n