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jandersonlee
January 22nd, 2010, 08:51 PM
I'm trying to set up an Ubuntu 9.10 amd64 (actually Nehalem) server cluster in a remote location. We need to be able to do remote installs/reinstalls using just PXE boot and a serial console server. I've managed to preseed most of the install. The trouble I have is that the console server doesn't encode/transmit Fxx function-keys in a way that the nodes understand, so I cannot press F12 to PXE boot when I need a reinstall. Go in to tweak the bios boot order each time would be possible, but painful.

I'd like to set it up so that the PXE-boot brings up the ubuntu-installer, but add a "boot from first disk" option to the boot/install menu and make it the default with a timeout of 30 seconds. That way if a system reboots, the default action will be to restart the installed OS, but if I deliberately reboot it and monitor the serial console, I can see the boot menus and force a preseeded reinstall.

I'm trying to figure out how to tweak ubuntu-installer/amd64/boot-screens/* to add this hack. So far I've not found the appropriate documentation or sample code. Is it even possible? (I believe some of the CDs have that option.)

Once I have that working, the next step would be to get rid of the "graphical" boot menus and make them strictly textual so that *all* the boot menus get displayed to the serial console port as well as to the screen.

Thanks in Advance.

jandersonlee
January 22nd, 2010, 10:30 PM
Step 1: added the following to text.cfg

timeout 300
label ^diskboot: Boot from local disk
menu default
localboot 0


Now I get a functional option to chain to the local disk (so long as booting from the local disk is a viable option in the bios boot order after PXE boot).

I had to change all the "timeout 0" to "timeout 300" in other .cfg files as well as in the original pxeboot.cfg/default to get it to not hang at the menu forever.

Any suggestions on getting the menu text to show on the serial console port?

jandersonlee
January 23rd, 2010, 01:10 AM
I found a SYSLINUX wiki site which documents the PXELINUX.0 boot configuration file formats. I ended up scraping most of the default multi-file menu system. By putting a simple menu in the pxelinux.cfg/default file and adding "SERIAL 0 57600 0" and "SAY enter 'local' for local boot, 'install' to reinstall" commands I was able to get it to prompt me over the serial console port as well as on the console display.

jandersonlee
January 23rd, 2010, 02:52 AM
Added "console=ttyS0,57600" to the kernel parameters for the installation option and now I can watch the install progress on the serial console port. Sweet. :)