DHCP/PXE install [Quantal]

[eckertd]

Having a little issue here getting Quantal installed from a DHCP/PXE setup that we currently use to deploy RHEL & CentOS.

I pulled the kernel and initrd files from here


http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/quantal/main/installer-amd64/current/images/cdrom/initrd.gz
http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/quantal/main/installer-amd64/current/images/cdrom/vmlinuz

Stored locally on the DHCP/PXE server


/tftpboot/kernels/Ubuntu/amd64/Quantal/initrd.gz
/tftpboot/kernels/Ubuntu/amd64/Quantal/vmlinuz

Using this pxelinux.0 file


# strings pxelinux.0 | grep PXELINUX
PXELINUX 4.05 20120702

Entry in isolinux.cfg:


LABEL ubuntu-quantal
KERNEL kernels/Ubuntu/amd64/Quantal/vmlinuz
APPEND initrd=kernels/Ubuntu/amd64/Quantal/initrd.gz
APPEND preseed/url=http://aaa.bbb.ccc.ddd/ubuntu/preseed/preseed-quantal.cfg
APPEND preseed/url/cehcksum=03bb7756b55fea992b1219dc2e6e99e5

The server is PXE-booted, and our splash screen & boot prompt are displayed, at which point I enter


boot: ubuntu-quantal

It starts off ok, but then I get a VFS error and kernel panic about not being able to open root device (se attached image). At this point, it hasn't even attempted to pull the preseed file from the specified URL (verified w/tcpdump). What am I missing? It's almost as if it's trying to do a diskless boot rather than an install.

[eckertd]

Of course the boot messages scroll too quick to capture on an iLO virtual console. I'm pretty sure it has something to do with the CCISS driver (or lack thereof). The only "valid" partition it reports is the CD/DVD device (sr0).

I've even tried the kernel/initrd files from here, which according to the manifest, are those to be used for PXE installs


http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/precise/main/installer-amd64/current/images/netboot/ubuntu-installer/amd64/

Same result.

[eckertd]

I'm making some progress. Consolidating the multiple "APPEND" lines into 1 seems to be helping. At least I'm getting further in the install process. It looks like it's grabbing the preseed file, but it having some issue retrieving a file(s) from my local distro mirror.

[eckertd]

Slowly working my way through this... my isolinux.cfg entry now looks like


LABEL ubuntu-quantal
KERNEL kernels/Ubuntu/amd64/Quantal/linux
APPEND initrd=kernels/Ubuntu/amd64/Quantal/initrd.gz locale=en_US -- interface=eth2 url=http://172.26.23.131/preseed/preseed-quantal.cfg keyboard-configuration/layoutcode=en_US

It's pulling in the preseed file ok. According to the apache2 access log, it's trying to retrieve files in the path


/ubuntu/dists/quantal/main/debian-installer/binary-amd64/

However, the local mirror I have set up doesn't have the "debian-installer" subdir under "main". Here is my /etc/apt-mirror.list:


############# config ##################
#
set base_path /apt-mirror
#
# set mirror_path $base_path/mirror
# set skel_path $base_path/skel
# set var_path $base_path/var
# set cleanscript $var_path/clean.sh
# set defaultarch <running host architecture>
# set postmirror_script $var_path/postmirror.sh
# set run_postmirror 0
set nthreads 20
set _tilde 0
#
############# end config ##############

#
# Mirror lists for Ubuntu 12.10 - Quantal Quetzal
#

deb-amd64 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu quantal main restricted universe multiverse
deb-amd64 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu quantal-security main restricted universe multiverse
deb-amd64 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu quantal-updates main restricted universe multiverse
deb-i386 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu quantal main restricted universe multiverse
deb-i386 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu quantal-security main restricted universe multiverse
deb-i386 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu quantal-updates main restricted universe multiverse
#deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu quantal-proposed main restricted universe multiverse
#deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu quantal-backports main restricted universe multiverse

#deb-src http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu quantal main restricted universe multiverse
#deb-src http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu quantal-security main restricted universe multiverse
#deb-src http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu quantal-updates main restricted universe multiverse
#deb-src http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu quantal-proposed main restricted universe multiverse
#deb-src http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu quantal-backports main restricted universe multiverse

clean http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu

Wondering if there's something to override this in the preseed config file...