Show HN: Pxehost – no-configuration rootless PXE server
pxehost.com
Want to show my tool pxehost. It's a single command you can run to boot up other computers on your local network into the netboot.xyz menu to download Linux installers, Live CDs, etc.
pxehost does everything automatically, there's no config options. It's cross platform and doesn't need root. You just run it and then netboot your other computer.
Background:
A few weeks ago I searched for an easy to use tool which can let me boot Linux over PXE on the local network from my M3 MacBook Pro. A few hours later, I had found out about netboot.xyz, but suffered with limitations of Docker host networking and virtualization on macOS.
Then I asked ChatGPT: "can you just write a single file Go program for PXE boot which does DHCP and TFTP and just works." And it was able to one-shot that. Cool.
I decided to take some time to clean up the code, add tests, polish it and release it.
Along the way I found out something cool!
Quiz: Of macOS, Windows, and Linux, which OS needs root/admin to bind to ports < 1024?
Answer: None of them! Windows never did. macOS (since Mojave) lets you bind 0.0.0.0 to sub-1024 ports without root. And Linux has CAP_NET_BIND_SERVICE.
Anyway, hope you like it. Please let me know if you use it and if you have any issues