The boot protocol, known as bootp, is used by diskless workstations. When a diskless workstation boots, it does so using an eeprom on the network card to allow it to load basic drivers and connect to the network by obtaining an ip address automatically. a bootp server, similar to a dhcp server, assigns the diskless workstation an address for the network to allow it to participate on the network. You will see the term bootp a lot when it comes to dhcp and routers; a bootp-enabled router will allow the dhcp broadcast to cross the router so that a dhcp server can be found on the other side of the network.
