Ubuntu 10.04 LIVE Via PXE (Network boot)

[TyTiger]

Hi people,

Ive recently been playing around with PXE (network booting)ubuntu and various other OS's (thinstation eg) and I was able to get ubuntu 8.04 LTS to boot the live disk entirely over the network using a combination of tftp and the disk image mounted and shared as an NFS share on a server..

I however have had no such luck doing the same thing with ubuntu 10.04 TLS using the exact same method as used previously,
(Download iso, extracted vmlinuz and initrd out of casper directory) and so on, to find that the boot process stops after running the pre mount scripts (see attached image for details)

from what i can gather its related to the network drivers/modules, but dont take my word for it

Also the same error occurs on multiple PXE Enabled clients i have tested this on, not just virtual box. all machines have different nics and so fourth and are all (normally) compatible with ubuntu out of the box.

you can see a write up of my full method of booting via PXE Here
thanks.

[TyTiger]

Bump

[TyTiger]

bump

[TyTiger]

Anybody?

[hakkie42@gmail.com]

Seem to remember the way that newer Ubuntus boot is different than 8.04. Probably not much help to you, but at least it's an indication you're not going mad.

Random copy/paste from my notes (at the time working with Ubuntu 9); sorry it's been too long so I don't know whether this works.
Modify our PXELINUX configuration file.
#note: I lowercased all names to avoid confusion
sudo nano /var/lib/tftpboot/pxelinux.cfg/default
DEFAULT vesamenu.c32
TIMEOUT 6000
ONTIMEOUT BootLocal
PROMPT 0
MENU INCLUDE pxelinux.cfg/pxe.conf
NOESCAPE 1
LABEL BootLocal
localboot 0
TEXT HELP
Boot to local hard disk
ENDTEXT
MENU BEGIN Ubuntu
MENU TITLE Ubuntu
LABEL Previous
MENU LABEL Previous Menu
TEXT HELP
Return to previous menu
ENDTEXT
MENU EXIT
MENU SEPARATOR
MENU INCLUDE ubuntu/ubuntu.menu
MENU END
MENU BEGIN CentOS
MENU TITLE CentOS
LABEL Previous
MENU LABEL Previous Menu
TEXT HELP
Return to previous menu
ENDTEXT
MENU EXIT
MENU SEPARATOR
MENU INCLUDE centos/centos.menu
MENU END
MENU BEGIN Fedora
MENU TITLE Fedora
LABEL Previous
MENU LABEL Previous Menu
TEXT HELP
Return to previous menu
ENDTEXT
MENU EXIT
MENU SEPARATOR
MENU INCLUDE fedora/fedora.menu
MENU END
MENU BEGIN SystemRescueCd
MENU TITLE SystemRescueCd
LABEL Previous
MENU LABEL Previous Menu
TEXT HELP
Return to previous menu
ENDTEXT
MENU EXIT
MENU SEPARATOR
MENU INCLUDE systemrescuecd/systemrescuecd.menu
MENU END
MENU BEGIN VMware
MENU TITLE VMware
LABEL Previous
MENU LABEL Previous Menu
TEXT HELP
Return to previous menu
ENDTEXT
MENU EXIT
MENU SEPARATOR
MENU INCLUDE vmware/vmware.menu
MENU END
MENU BEGIN Tools and Utilities
MENU TITLE Tools and Utilities
LABEL Previous
MENU LABEL Previous Menu
TEXT HELP
Return to previous menu
ENDTEXT
MENU EXIT
MENU SEPARATOR
MENU INCLUDE utilities/utilities.menu
MENU END
MENU BEGIN DOS Based
MENU TITLE DOS Based
LABEL Previous
MENU LABEL Previous Menu
TEXT HELP
Return to previous menu
ENDTEXT
MENU EXIT
MENU SEPARATOR
MENU INCLUDE dos/dos.menu
MENU END

sudo nano /var/lib/tftpboot/pxelinux.cfg/pxe.conf
MENU TITLE PXE Server
MENU BACKGROUND pxelinux.cfg/logo.png
NOESCAPE 1
ALLOWOPTIONS 1
PROMPT 0
menu width 80
menu rows 14
MENU TABMSGROW 24
MENU MARGIN 10
menu color border 30;44 #ffffffff #00000000 std

Create the Ubuntu menu and files:
#files:
Mount the Ubuntu DVD ISO and copy the kernel and initrd to the previously created location.
sudo mount -o loop -t iso9660 /myth/tmp/ubuntu-9.10-desktop-i386.iso /mnt
#for fedora type:
sudo cp /mnt/images/pxeboot/vmlinuz /var/lib/tftpboot/centos/5.3/amd64
sudo cp /mnt/images/pxeboot/initrd.img /var/lib/tftpboot/centos/5.3/amd64
#for ubuntu type:
sudo cp /mnt/casper/vmlinuz /var/lib/tftpboot/ubuntu/9.10/i386
#ubuntu 9.04:
sudo cp /mnt/casper/initrd.gz /var/lib/tftpboot/ubuntu/9.04/i386
#ubuntu 9.10:
sudo cp /mnt/casper/initrd.lz /var/lib/tftpboot/ubuntu/9.10/i386
sudo cp -R /mnt/* /myth/install/ubuntu/9.10/i386
sudo umount /mnt

#menu:
sudo mkdir -p /var/lib/tftpboot/ubuntu/
sudo touch /var/lib/tftpboot/ubuntu/ubuntu.menu
#the tftp paths are relative to /var/lib/tftpboot.
sudo nano /var/lib/tftpboot/ubuntu/ubuntu.menu
LABEL 2
MENU LABEL 9.10 Gnome Live (32-bit)
KERNEL ubuntu/9.10/i386/vmlinuz
APPEND boot=casper netboot=nfs nfsroot=192.168.153.20:/myth/install/ubuntu/9.10/i386 initrd=ubuntu/9.10/i386/initrd.lz
TEXT HELP
Boot the Ubuntu 9.10 Live CD
ENDTEXT
LABEL 1
MENU LABEL 9.04 Gnome Live (64-bit)
KERNEL ubuntu/9.04/amd64/vmlinuz
APPEND boot=casper netboot=nfs nfsroot=192.168.153.20:/myth/install/ubuntu/9.04/amd64 initrd=ubuntu/9.04/amd64/initrd.gz
TEXT HELP
Boot the Ubuntu 9.04 Live CD
ENDTEXT

[TyTiger]

Hi, thanks for the reply,

The text i have in my PXE menu is:
label Ubuntu 10.04 LTS LIVE
MENU LABEL Ubuntu 10.04 LTS (Experomental)
kernel bootimages\ubuntu\vmlinuz_ub104
append initrd=bootimages\ubuntu\initrd_ub104.lz root=/dev/nfs boot=casper netboot=nfs nfsroot=192.168.1.250:/mnt/ubuntu104/ splash=silent

(the _ub### at the end of the images denotes versions as i have more than one image in the tftp folder)

this isn't working though (obviously) i cant figure out what needs adding, taking away etc

thanks

[TyTiger]

Hi, thanks for the reply,

The text i have in my PXE menu is:
label Ubuntu 10.04 LTS LIVE
MENU LABEL Ubuntu 10.04 LTS (Experomental)
kernel bootimages\ubuntu\vmlinuz_ub104
append initrd=bootimages\ubuntu\initrd_ub104.lz root=/dev/nfs boot=casper netboot=nfs nfsroot=192.168.1.250:/mnt/ubuntu104/ splash=silent

(the _ub### at the end of the images denotes versions as i have more than one image in the tftp folder)

this isn't working though (obviously) i cant figure out what needs adding, taking away etc

thanks

I changed the "APPEND" line to the following, but still no luck. same error

APPEND boot=casper netboot=nfs nfsroot=192.168.1.250:/mnt/ubuntu104/ initrd=bootimages\ubuntu\initrd_ub104.lz

[raysolomon]

Here, see if you can make sense of this.
I don't have time to explain it but I can easily setup any Debian in a snap if I need to. I basically dedicate one machine(laptop) that acts as a dhcp/tftp/pxe server. If it does not help, sorry.

http://ray-solomon.com/tech/networking/pxe-boot-server/


I'm not a fan of TFTPd32

[TyTiger]

Here, see if you can make sense of this.
I don't have time to explain it but I can easily setup any Debian in a snap if I need to. I basically dedicate one machine(laptop) that acts as a dhcp/tftp/pxe server. If it does not help, sorry.

http://ray-solomon.com/tech/networking/pxe-boot-server/


I'm not a fan of TFTPd32

Still not getting anywhere thanks though

[c0mm]

I don't think your network card is even being detected.