Setup Ubuntu as PXE Boot Server

**Pyro.699** · December 23rd, 2008

Hello,

Ive been looking online for guides for how to install Ubuntu as a PXE Boot Server, meaning a user could boot on-to a Linux environment through PXE (Not install from it, boot onto it). All the guides I've managed to find are on how to install from a PXE boot server. Looking at this guide Here (I know its not dealing with ubuntu), it said i needed to have some packages in stalled, but when i ran "sudo apt-get <those packages>" it said they didn't exist so i dont really know what to do. Im running Ubuntu Server 8.04

Thankyou
~Cody Woolaver

**eL_vErDe** · December 23rd, 2008

/etc/fstab:

Code:

/tftpboot/ubuntu/iso/ubuntu-8.04-desktop-i386.iso       /tftpboot/ubuntu/live-mntpoint  auto    loop    0       0

/etc/exports:

Code:

/tftpboot/ubuntu/live-mntpoint  *(async,ro,no_root_squash,subtree_check)

PXE Bootloader (this a internal bootloader of my corpo, you will have to fix it for pxelinux):

Code:

title Ubuntu 8.04 Live
desc Ubuntu 8.04 Live
kernel (nd)/tftpboot/ubuntu/live-mntpoint/casper/vmlinuz boot=casper netboot=nfs nfsroot=192.168.0.7:/tftpboot/ubuntu/live-mntpoint console-setup/layoutcode=fr
initrd (nd)/tftpboot/ubuntu/live-mntpoint/casper/initrd.gz

**Pyro.699** · December 23rd, 2008

My first look at that makes me feel like it is exactly like having a live image. I want the user to be able to read/write to the hard drive. Something in this order...

-Computer gets turned on
-Boots onto PXE server
-Loads Ubuntu Desktop (Also installed on the same partition (hdd0,2 (I have all the boot infor needed for that)))
-Asks the user for a login
-Runs as a normal install, allowing the user read/write access to the disk

Thanks
~Cody Woolaver

**Pyro.699** · December 24th, 2008

Sorry for the double post, but after a night of searching i was still unable to get some results.

**koenn** · December 24th, 2008

your server will have to do dhcp so that the clients get an ip address from it. The dhcp will also have to provide a reference to the clients about where to find a boot image, so that's a dhcp option you have to set.
The server then also needs to serve the boot image, usually by tftp. This means you'll need a boot image, and configure your server to serve it when clients request it. As you probably don't want the clients to download a complete OS at every boot, the boot image will most likely be some sort of thin client configuration that allows access to terminal sessions/desktop session/filesystem on the server.

So, those are the steps.
You can probably find additional info at edubuntu, they (used to ?) use a thin client network boot approach
Linux Terminal Service also has good ifo - here's a start: http://www.ltsp.org/twiki/bin/view/Ltsp/PXE

Unless you find a boot image that suits your purpose, you may have to build one. Syslinux is often used for that
http://syslinux.zytor.com/wiki/index.php/PXELINUX

As for the actual packages : I assume Debian supports pxe so there's a good chance you'll find the required software in Universe. search for terminal service, thin client, pxe, ltsp, ...
Some of these may also be in the main repo as part of edubuntu.

**Pyro.699** · December 25th, 2008

Thank you,

After reading those pages i have a better understanding of whats going on. Before you had a chance to post that i came across This, which i think is exactly what i wanted. I went threw the steps used but i kept getting stuck due to a lack of knowledge. Ill explain the basic information i know.

-I want the hosts IP to be 192.168.1.0 Host name: Flareon
-The client IPs will range from 192.168.1.1 to 192.168.1.254

Here are the areas i have questions about:

Question 1

allow booting;
allow bootp;

subnet 192.168.2.0 netmask 255.255.255.0 {
range 192.168.2.xxx 192.168.2.xxx;
option broadcast-address 192.168.2.255;
option routers 192.168.2.xxx;
option domain-name-servers 192.168.2.xxx;

filename "/pxelinux.0";
}

# force the client to this ip for pxe.
# This is only necessary assuming you want to send different images to different computers.
host pxe_client {
hardware ethernet xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx;
fixed-address 192.168.2.xxx;
}

This file should be located at: /etc/dchp3/dchpd.conf

Would i preform the following steps to change this content.

subnet 192.168.1.0
range 192.168.1.1 192.168.1.254
option brodcast-address 192.168.1.254
option routers 192.168.1.??? (I don't know what to put here)
option domain-name-servers 192.168.1.??? (Don't know what to put here either)

hardware ethernet MY:AD:RE:SS:HE:RE (Would this be the MAC Address of the first client i wanted to add?)
fixed-address 192.168.1.1

Next Question:

I created the file: /tftpboot/pxelinux.cfg/default then put the contents in it

Originally Posted by /tftpboot/pxelinux.cfg/default

LABEL linux
KERNEL /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.27-7-generic
APPEND root=/dev/nfs initrd=/boot/initrd.img-2.6.27-7-generic nfsroot=192.168.1.1:/nfsroot ip=dhcp rw

I got those values from /boot/grub/menu.lst

Originally Posted by /boot/grub/menu.lst

title Ubuntu 8.10
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.27-7-generic root=UUID=4cbb2961-243a-4a24-b244-92ddab1c749f ro quiet splash
initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.27-7-generic

Just wanting to make sure i had that part right it seems like a critical aspect.

Next Question:

Originally Posted by /etc/exports

# /etc/exports: the access control list for filesystems which may be exported
# to NFS clients. See exports(5).
#
# Example for NFSv2 and NFSv3:
# /srv/homes hostname1(rw,sync) hostname2(ro,sync)
#
# Example for NFSv4:
# /srv/nfs4 gss/krb5i(rw,sync,fsid=0,crossmnt)
# /srv/nfs4/homes gss/krb5i(rw,sync)
#
/nfsroot 192.168.1.1(rw,no_root_squash,async)

Just needed to see if i had the IP address correct.

Question x
I created the directory /ntfsroot but was unsure what it wanted, i have to copy my entire install to that location. Is there anyways that i could just use the current install without waisting all that disk space?

I think thats it for now.

Thankyou very much!
~Cody Woolaver

**koenn** · December 25th, 2008

By the looks of it, you miss even elementary network knwoledge. What are you setting up network boot for ?

I assume by 'the host' you mean a server ?
you can't use 192.162.1.0 as a host address. It's a network address. You probably want 192.168.1.1 in stead. You should probably mannually configure the server with a static ip address.

Consequently, your dhcp range shouldn't include 192.168.1.1. Try starting from 192.168.1.2

option routers : sets the default gateway for dhcp clients, so it probably should be the address of a router

option domain name servers : tells the dhcp clients what dns servers to use. what to pot here depends on how you deal with dns on your LAN.

The section with hardware ethernet and fixed-address is if you want to assign a specific ip address to a computer with a given MAC address. If you're just doing plain dhcp, you don't need it.

you'll have to have your network config, especially the dhcp, correct before you can even think about network boot.

As for your questions about pxe specifically, I've never done this, so I wouldn't know - the Ubuntu howto you referred too looks pretty complete.

I think, however, that it's not a good idea to serve up your server's filesystem / operating system to the clients. They'll be using it as ther filesystem / OS, and you probably don't want multiple identical servers on your network. It can cause al sorts of trouble. You also don't want clients modifying the server's files.

**Pyro.699** · December 25th, 2008

The "clients" that are going to be accessing this is just me. Im doing this for 2 reasons.

First im doing this so that i can gain some learning experience from it. As you stated early i lack a lot of networking knowledge and doing small projects like this allows me to learn by experience.

Second I'm doing this so that i can have more computers setup for some calculations (not WPA cracking), another thing i do im my spare time is create programs to do complex complications, my only limiter is that i dont have enough hard drives to have more computers running.

The host will be running Ubuntu Desktop 8.10. I already have a static ip asigned (now changed to 192.168.1.1)

Thanks
~Cody Woolaver

**koenn** · December 25th, 2008

you still need to separate between the client system and the server system, I think.

If it were men I'd take this in 3 steps :
1- see if you can get a working dhcp server
2- see if you can get network boot working, without much concern of what exactly it is that's booting (just follow a guide or a howto)
3- if you have a working pxe boot, look into how you can modify the OS that the clients will boot.