ONIE

ONIE, the Open Network Installation Environment is a crucial piece in disaggregating Hard and Software Layers on a networking device. Like the BIOS on a server allows the installation of different Operating Systems on the hardware, ONIE allows the installation of different Network OSs on a switch hardware platform.

The project was started 2012 by Cumulus Networks, and got accepted by the OCP in 2014. It is available at: https://github.com/opencomputeproject/onie

It became the de facto standard bootloader for open network hardware, with wide support by hardware ( f.e. Agema, Alphanetworks, Broadcom, Celestica, Centec, Dell, Edge-Core, HP, Interface Masters, Inventec, Juniper, Mellanox, Penguin Computing and Quanta) and Software (Big Switch, Broadcom, Cumulus, Mellanox, OpenNetworkLinux ) companies.

ONIE supports many installation sources, but the most often used version leverages DHCP and a webserver to autodiscover the correct image on the network and install it onto the device in a zero config fashion.

More details about ONIE can be found in our Hands-ON section, where we have an introduction to ONIE and walk through installing a Network Operating System via ONIE.