Patent ID: 7886139

Claim:
A device comprising: a processor; a memory having thereon programmable code for completing the functionality of an extended network support package, including: receiving from a system firmware of a client system a set of boot arguments; determining whether the set of boot arguments contains therein a command keyword; when the command keyword is not present, initiating a standard TFTP bootstrap process; and when a command keyword is present in the set of boot arguments: automatically activating an Internet Small Computer Systems Interface (iSCSI) device discovery process wherein an iSCSI device is accessed to retrieve a boot file for the client system; and when one or more qualifier keywords are within the set of boot arguments, said automatically activating comprises: initiating one or more specific discovery processes corresponding respectively to the one or more qualifier keywords, wherein the one or more discovery processes accesses a specific information server to retrieve addressing parameters and other access information for the iSCSI device; and on receipt of the addressing parameters and other access information from the specific information server, forwarding the addressing parameters and other access information to a disk support package of the iSCSI device to trigger loading of the boot file from the iSCSI device to the client system.