PXE Boot Ubuntu Livecd into ram without nfs server

[wazzgame]

Hello,

I am trying to pxe boot a ubuntu desktop livecd without using a nfs server. We have a bunch of servers in our data center and I would like the ability to boot them to a livecd for rescue mode / debugging purposes. I would like everything to be booted to ram without using a nfs mount for root file system.

The issue I am running into is squashfs. What is the best way to embed squashfs or get the kernel/initrd to download and use squashfs? We would like to load everything from http so once its loaded it does not rely on any other external service like nfs. I have downloaded the latest ubuntu 16.04 desktop/livecd and extracted vmlinuz + initrd.lz + filesystem.squashfs.

# Example pxe boot config.
kernel http://192.168.10.10/boot_templates/...casper/vmlinuz boot=casper
initrd http://192.168.10.10/boot_templates/...sper/initrd.lz
boot

I have looked at 100 pxe boot guides and 95 of them use nfs. Some of the older ubuntu 10/ubuntu 12 guides do use a fetch command but that does not need to be working with the ubuntu 16.04 files from livecd. Example - "fetch=http://192.168.10.10/boot_templates/ubuntu_16.04/casper/filesystem.squashfs"

I asked some people in the irc channel and one person mentioned that you can build your squashfs into your initrd / initramfs but didn't provide more details on that. So what is the easiest way to accomplish this? Also If I could some how setup rc.local or something to wget a bash/shell script to install our key file, start ssh, and perform a few other commands that would be great. Thanks!

[wazzgame]

FYI I just downloaded the debian-live-8.8.0-amd64-standard.iso and extracted vmlinuz initrd.img filesystem.squashfs and it fully booted to livecd from pxe. I used the same exact config for ubuntu and it fails trying to load root fs. I assume "fetch=" is not valid or integrated?

kernel http://192.168.10.10/boot_templates/...8/live/vmlinuz
initrd http://192.168.10.10/boot_templates/...ive/initrd.img
imgargs vmlinuz boot=live config hooks=filesystem username=live noeject fetch=http://192.168.10.10/boot_templates/debian_8.8/live/filesystem.squashfs
boot

[wazzgame]

So it seems casper doesn't support http fetch of filesystem.squashfs. I found a patch on https://forum.kde.org/viewtopic.php?f=309&t=136596 but it doesn't seem to be working with the latest initrd/scripts/casper

Perhaps someone can take a look at the altered initrd/scripts/casper file and fix it up?
https://pastebin.com/V6W39XJu