Table of Contents

• Overview

• DHCP Installation and Configuration

• TFTP Installation and Configuration

• PXE Boot Files Configuration

• Kickstart and Preseed Configuration

Overview

These files are intended to help you quickly setup and configure a PXE (Preboot Execution Environment) server which is capable of installing multiple operating systems.

The supported list of operating systems may be found in the mirrors file in this same directory. You may add to this list, but you might need to modify the mktftpboot.py script in that case.

DHCP Installation and Configuration

If you currently have a DHCP server on your subnet then specify your intended PXE boot server as the "next-server" in your DHCP config. Also, specify "pxelinux.0" as the filename for clients to look for. Compare with the snippet below.

If you currently do not have a DHCP server on your subnet:

Install dhcpd:

yum install dhcp
  or
apt-get update && apt-get install dhcp3-server

Edit /etc/dhcpd.conf, or /etc/dhcpd/dhcpd.conf and make an entry for your subnet similar to the following:

ddns-update-style none;
ignore client-updates;

next-server PXEServerIP;
filename "pxelinux.0";

subnet 192.168.1.0 netmask 255.255.255.0 {
        option routers                  192.198.1.1;   # Your Gateway IP
        option subnet-mask              255.255.255.0;
        option domain-name              "example.com";
        option domain-name-servers      8.8.8.8;       # DNS server
        option time-offset              -18000;        # Eastern Standard Time
        range dynamic-bootp 192.168.1.80 192.168.1.99; # DHCP IP range
        default-lease-time 2160;
        max-lease-time 4320;
}

Start or restart dhcpd and check /var/log/message or /var/log/syslog for failures.

TFTP Installation and Configuration

Install the TFTP server on your PXE boot server:

yum install tftp tftp-server
  or
apt-get update && apt-get install tftp tftpd

If you are running iptables, you'll need to add the following rule:

-A RH-Firewall-1-INPUT -s 192.168.1.0/24 -p udp -m udp --dport 69 -j ACCEPT 

You will also need to load the ip_conntrack_tftp iptables module:

modprobe ip_conntrack_tftp

On CentOS/Redhat servers, make the above persistent by editing /etc/sysconfig/iptables, and /etc/sysconfig/iptables-config.

You'll likely need to edit /etc/xinetd.d/tftp to enable the tftp server. Modify the "server_args" variable in that file to specify the tftp root directory, perhaps use "/tftpboot". Then restart xinetd and the tftp server should be running.

PXE Boot Files Configuration

Now you may run the mktftpboot.py script in this directory. First, edit the mirrors text file to ensure that you are using a mirror for each operating system that is close to you. Also, you may comment out any operating system that you do not want to support. Run the script with no arguments to see up to date usage instructions. Basically, you should be able to run:

python mktftpboot.py /tftpboot

and it will download the appropriate boot files for each supported operating system.

You will then be instructed to make your menu system in /tftpboot/pxelinux.cfg, assuming that tftpboot is the directory you passed to mktftpboot.py. If this is a new setup, then you can just run this:

cp -av pxelinux.cfg /tftpboot/

This will give you a functional PXE boot environment that will allow you to do stock installs, boot into rescue environments, and run memtest.

In addition, this sets up mfsBSD to load as an ISO image over the network, found in the tools menu. This may serve as a template for loading other base ISO images or regular disk images via pxelinux. These images may be gzipped too.

If you want to enable automatic installs then please continue to the next section.

Kickstart and Preseed Configuration

If you look at pxelinux.cfg/auto you'll notice that every entry has a "YOURWEBSERVER" variable. In order to support automatic installations of Debian, Ubuntu, and CentOS servers, you need to have a webserver that can serve the preseed or kickstart files to the installation process.

The PXE boot server you just setup is a fine place to put these files. First, install a webserver:

yum install httpd
  or
apt-get install apache2

On CentOS, start and enable the web server:

service httpd start
chkconfig httpd on

The default webroot will likely be /var/www/html/. In this directory, create two folders:

mkdir /var/www/html/kickstart
mkdir /var/www/html/preseed

Now, copy the basic automatic install files from the kickstart and preseed files in the current direcotry:

cp preseed/* /var/www/html/preseed/
cp kickstart/* /var/www/html/kickstart/

By default, the root password on these intallations is "pl3aseChangeme!". To set this to something different you'll need to encode a new password and update the relevant options in the kickstart and preseed files.

The default timezone in these preseed and kickstart files is America/Denver.

If you run your own mirror, or if you are closer to another mirror than the default, you can update the mirror options in the kickstart and preseed files. Choosing a close and fast mirror will greatly increase the speed of the installation process.