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ipxe ★ 2044 802 APPLICATION

iPXE is an open-source network boot firmware that provides a full PXE implementation with enhanced capabilities. It operates as a pre-boot environment, replacing or supplementing traditional BIOS/UEFI PXE ROMs. The firmware supports booting over HTTP/HTTPS, iSCSI, Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE), AoE, InfiniBand, and wireless networks, with full TLS 1.2 support including modern cipher suites (ECDHE, GCM, X25519, P-256/P-384). It includes a built-in command-line shell, scripting engine, interactive menus, and extensive hardware drivers for network cards, USB controllers, and storage devices across x86, ARM, RISC-V, LoongArch, and s390x architectures. The architecture is modular and table-driven: drivers, protocols, commands, and startup functions are registered via compile-time tables (e.g., `__pci_driver`, `__net_protocol`, `__command`), enabling a highly configurable build. The core uses an interface/refcount pattern for object-oriented-like composition, with reference-counted objects and asynchronous data transfer via `struct interface`. The codebase is well-structured with clear separation between architecture-specific code (under `src/arch/`), platform interfaces (EFI, BIOS, Linux userspace, SBI), and generic core logic. A comprehensive test suite (over 50 unit tests plus Wycheproof vectors) validates cryptographic primitives, network protocols, and data structures. Key entry points include `src/core/main.c` (generic boot flow), EFI application entry (`efiprefix.c`), BIOS PXE ROM entry, and Linux userspace binary. The firmware is typically embedded into option ROMs, UEFI drivers, or bootable images. External dependencies are minimal—the firmware runs directly on hardware or under a hypervisor, relying only on platform firmware services (UEFI, BIOS, SBI) for low-level operations.

RATING: 9.1/10 MAINT: active DRIFT: low
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