Boot a gaming PC into Debian over the network via PXE, iPXE, iSCSI, and a ZFS zvol on a Proxmox/NAS host, leaving Windows and local NVMe drives untouched.
Key Takeaways
Stack: netboot.xyz compiled locally, tftpd-hpa, targetcli-fb for iSCSI, and a 32 GB ZFS zvol as the block device exported over port 3260.
DNSMasq on an Asus Merlin router handles DHCP boot options for both legacy BIOS (undionly.kpxe) and UEFI (snp.efi/netboot.xyz.efi) clients.
Mutual CHAP auth is configured per-initiator in targetcli; generate_node_acls=0 and demo_mode_write_protect=1 lock down unauthenticated access.
GRUB lives on the remote zvol, so Windows updates cannot clobber it and no local repartitioning or USB drives are needed.
OS boot is slower than local NVMe, but acceptable when RAM is sufficient to cache models after load.
Hacker News Comment Review
One commenter notes NFS diskless is the more common prior art; iSCSI with ZFS zvols is the less-traveled but block-level alternative.
No substantive technical debate or failure reports yet beyond the NFS comparison.
