Inventors:
William M. McCardle - Spring TX, US
Assignee:
Intel Corporation - Santa Clara CA
International Classification:
G06F 9/00
Abstract:
Method, apparatus and computer software provide for the loading of configuration data from a remote source to set the initial configuration of a computing system during a boot process. One or more software components are operable on the computing system to determine if configuration data is to be retrieved from a remote source, configure a network interface and determining if the network is active, establish a route to a server storing the configuration data, download the configuration data from the server to the computing system, verify that the configuration data was received correctly, and use the downloaded configuration data to at least in part set the initial configuration of the computing system. When remote data is unavailable, configuration data from a local source is used to set the initial configuration of the computing system. A determination of whether to retrieve configuration data from a remote source is done by checking a setting in local configuration data stored in a local nonvolatile storage device.