The operating system (OS) for a diskless node is loaded from a server, using network booting. In some cases, removable storage may be used to initiate the bootstrap process, such as a USB flash drive, or other bootable media such as a floppy disk, CD or DVD. However, the firmware in many modern computers can be configured to locate a server and begin the bootup process automatically, without the need to insert bootable media.
After the bootstrapping process has been initiated, as described above, bootstrapping will take place according to one of three main approaches.