Creating a PXE boot for Jaunty Live.

[chrismyers]

Requires:

Ubuntu server for PXE environment (tested on Jaunty 9.04 server).
Wired network.
PXE boot capable network card on target machine.

On the Ubuntu server:

Login as root or sudo su -

Create the following directory structure:

/pxe

/pxe/images

/pxe/images/ubuntu

/pxe/pxelinux.cfg

Download syslinux-xxx.zip from here:

http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/boot/syslinux/

Extract the files.

Find menu.c32 & pxelinux.0 & copy them to the /pxe directory.

The other syslinux files & zip are no longer needed and can be deleted.

create a file /pxe/pxelinux.cfg/default & paste in the following:

DEFAULT menu.c32
PROMPT 0
NOESCAPE 0
ALLOWOPTIONS 0
TIMEOUT 600

MENU TITLE PXE Boot Menu

LABEL Ubuntu Jaunty Live Desktop
kernel images/ubuntu/casper/vmlinuz
append boot=casper netboot=nfs nfsroot=192.168.1.101:/pxe/images/ubuntu initrd=images/ubuntu/casper/initrd.gz -- splash

LABEL Ubuntu Jaunty Live Install
kernel images/ubuntu/casper/vmlinuz
append boot=casper netboot=nfs nfsroot=192.168.1.101:/pxe/images/ubuntu initrd=images/ubuntu/casper/initrd.gz -- splash only-ubiquity

Copy the contents of the Ubuntu live CD into /pxe/images/ubuntu

Now install dnsmasq & nfs-kernel-server

apt-get install dnsmasq nfs-kernel-server

edit /etc/dnsmasq.conf & replace all text with:

no-hosts
server=/localnet/192.168.1.1
dhcp-range=192.168.1.40,192.168.1.50,2h
dhcp-boot=pxelinux.0
enable-tftp
tftp-root=/pxe
resolv-file=/etc/nameservers
dhcp-option=3,192.168.1.1

Make sure you replace the ip addresses, netmasks etc with ones suitable for your network.

edit /etc/exports & replace all text with:

/pxe/images *(ro,sync,subtree_check)

Add your DNS nameservers by creating the new file (this example is for opendns):

nano /etc/nameservers

nameserver 208.67.222.222
nameserver 208.67.220.220

Reboot your server (or restart dnsmasq & nfs-kernel-server).


You should now be able to boot your target client machine to Ubuntu if it has a pxeboot enabled network card (usually accessed by pressing F12 at boot).

This worked for me. I hope this helps.

[FrozenCow]

Thanks for the tutorial! It worked great for me under VirtualBox (both PXE server and client). Though, it took a long time to boot and the performance isn't great, but it works .
EDIT: Just tried Xubuntu, which I setup the same way. It runs much faster.

[chrismyers]

No problems.

Now you have done that, you can add other live images, such as clonezilla - for making clone images of any machine (Linux/Windows).

[chrismyers]

Thanks for the tutorial! It worked great for me under VirtualBox (both PXE server and client). Though, it took a long time to boot and the performance isn't great, but it works .
EDIT: Just tried Xubuntu, which I setup the same way. It runs much faster.

Out of interest. Does your machine take a long time to boot, or is it slow when booted?

If it's slow to boot it could be because its running under VM (or slow network). If it's running slow, this could mean that your client has less than 384 megs of ram.

[mbeierl]

Hmmm... things worked but only up to a point: it "hangs" right after the squashfs message, with no further activity in the pxe client at all.

On the server I see this:
May 26 16:08:08 bootserver mountd[4469]: authenticated mount request from 192.168.0.122:1016 for /pxe/images/ubuntu (/pxe/images)

I have verified that the nfs mount is there and it looks fine from a secondary machine, but I have no idea how to debug the PXE client.

[mbeierl]

Urrrg... Hitting ctrl-c let something go and it booted. I am baffled at this point...

[senile2]

I guess I'll use this as a place to stop... I have gone cross eyed reading all the material on how to build a PXE server in Ubuntu, and so far none of them have worked or are missing parts or don't explain well enough how to do it.

Since your thread is dependent on PXE, I have to assume that you have one set up. Do you know of a good "how-to" document that will help setting one up? Currently have a system set up with Ubuntu 9.04 server and gnome gui, DHCP3, samba, tftfd, SSH, .... can't remember all the other packages I have installed at the direction of one doc or another.

I am part of a club that takes old computers and refurbs them then gives them to needy kids. Lots of fun, but after about 500 os installs (manually), there has got to be a better way.

Thanks in advance....

[chrismyers]

Hi Senile2,

Adding other boot images, such as Clonezilla (Ubuntu version) is relatively simple.

First, add the following into /pxe/pxelinux.cfg/default

LABEL Clonezilla 
kernel images/clonezilla/live/vmlinuz1 
append boot=live initrd=images/clonezilla/live/initrd1.img boot=live union=aufs netboot=nfs nfsroot=192.168.1.xxx:/pxe/images/clonezilla

Note: Change the IP to match that of your server.

Create a directoy:

/pxe/images/clonezilla

Download Clonezilla, burn the CD & copy the entire contents of the cd to the clonezilla directory (You no longer need the CD).

Try booting from PXE. You should now have a Clonezilla option.

Cheers.

[Davie In Dubai]

Interesting, but would I be right in guessing that any existing DHCP server on his LAN would stop this from working?

[deanhopkins]

Im having a problem with this whereas the ubuntu installer is telling me that 'No common CD-ROM drive was detected', as my laptop cd rom is broken.

Obviously, the files that are needed are stored on my ubuntu install on my desktop, and the laptop needs to read from them instead of looking for the CD.

any ideas?

thanks