NAME

isoboot — Boot code for hybrid ISO/USB images on BIOS-based computers

DESCRIPTION

isoboot is used on BIOS-based computers to boot from an ISO image that has been written to a USB flash drive or other HDD-like device. isoboot is installed in a x86 Boot partition with installboot(8).

IMPLEMENTATION NOTES

The El Torito standard for bootable CDs provides a 32KB "System Area" at the beginning of an image. To create an image that is able to be booted by the BIOS as either a CD-ROM ("ISO") and as a more HDD-like image (e.g. on a USB flash drive) it is necessary to have both a standard El Torito boot catalog containing a HDD-style partition table and boot code. isoboot is intended to be placed in a MBR x86 boot partition to allow the system to find the standard FreeBSD loader(7) in the ISO filesystem later in the image.

BOOTING

isoboot looks for an ISO filesystem image on the device it was booted from and seeks to read the primary illumos loader(7) from there.

HISTORY

isoboot appeared in FreeBSD 12.0.

AUTHORS

This manual page written by Benno Rice ⟨benno@FreeBSD.org⟩.