PXE Boot (Networked startup files)

I was recently struggling with the concept of mass-deploying computers to act as light switches, but I didn't want to have to go through and run pastebin commands every time I updated their light switch program. A few hours later, I ended up with a networked bootloader.

This program (or API/Utility, or OS, not sure where to put it so I threw it here) requires at least two computers; one to serve the startup script, and one to actually use the startup script. The two computers can be connected by wired or wireless modem. I think it would be very useful for mass-deploying computers with the exact same program running on all of them.

There are two installers; one for the server, and one for the client(s). They're very straightforward. There are no screenshots because the entire interface is the installers. The programs themselves have no interface whatsoever; they do their job and deploy your script to as many computers as you want. This can easily be used as an alternative to directly editing bios.lua (is that still possible? I haven't been around much). I plan to use one group to have a single light switch throughout my entire base, and another group to load security sensor programs around the base. Use it as you will. Have fun.

Client installer: http://pastebin.com/eGeXVhTh (pastebin run eGeXVhTh)
Server installer: http://pastebin.com/dedG6EyK (pastebin run dedG6EyK)

Make sure that your script is ready to go before you attempt to install the server, or it'll fail.

If you need to edit your script in-place on the server, it is copied from wherever you save it to /pxescript.

This is pretty cool, but,
maybe make the the program encrypted using AES (http://www.computercraft.info/forums2/index.php?/topic/18930-aes-encryption/) so programs aren't transmitted in plain-text OTA (example - door lock)?

Well, the program isn't exactly designed to be run wirelessly. It's possible, but not recommended. I say that because the client will use the first PXE host it can find. If you're using a wired network where you know all devices, it's much more secure. Otherwise, someone can fire up another PXE host in range and completely disable whatever you were doing.

Tiin57, on 30 August 2015 - 10:16 PM said:

Well, the program isn't exactly designed to be run wirelessly. It's possible, but not recommended. I say that because the client will use the first PXE host it can find. If you're using a wired network where you know all devices, it's much more secure. Otherwise, someone can fire up another PXE host in range and completely disable whatever you were doing.

Yet you can set the host, so it'd still be good.
And you can still get into wired networks if you somehow glitch to place the cable down.