- A DHCP server that support BOOTP
- TFTP Server
- PXELinux kernel boot file
- Linux installation ISO file
PXELinux
You may obtain PXE Linux Boot Kernel file from http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/boot/syslinux/
Download the version of SYSLINUX you prefer and extract the tar file. The PXE Linux Boot Kernel file name is pxelinux.0.
You should copy the pxelinux.0 to root directory of TFTP service.
DHCP Configuration
Add the following setting to dhcpd.conf to enable BOOTP
allow booting;
allow bootp;
range dynamic-bootp 192.168.0.221 192.168.0.230;
next-server 192.168.0.2;
filename "pxelinux.0";
next-server is the server of TFTP server.
TFTP Server
# Install TFTP server
yum install tftp-server
After installation, you may proceed to TFTP configuration. The configuration file is located at /etc/xinetd.d/tftp
TFTP Server Configuration – Enable the service
service tftp
{
disable = no
socket_type = dgram
protocol = udp
wait = yes
user = root
server = /usr/sbin/in.tftpd
server_args = -s /var/lib/tftpboot
per_source = 11
cps = 100 2
flags = IPv4
}
TFTP Server Configuration – Firewall
-A RH-Firewall-1-INPUT -m state --state NEW -m udp -p udp --dport 69 -j ACCEPT
TFTP Server Configuration – Log activities
Log activities of TFTP server Edit file /etc/xinetd.d/tftp and add "-v" option to tftpd. The flag can be specified multiple times for even higher verbosity. You need to restart xinetd service to activate tftp logging. The log details for TFTP may found in /var/log/messages.
service tftp
{
disable = no
socket_type = dgram
protocol = udp
wait = yes
user = root
server = /usr/sbin/in.tftpd
server_args = -v –v –s /var/lib/tftpboot
per_source = 11
cps = 100 2
flags = IPv4
}
TFTP Server – Restart service
# /sbin/service xinetd restart
A useful example of using the log is to see what files are requested by PXE client when serving Microsoft Windows boot loader. File names are always case sensitive in TFTP operation.
TFTP Server – File name remapping
Microsoft windows or DOS use backslash (\) for folder separator. It always cause problem in those TFTP server running on Linux OS where forward slash (/) is used as folder separator. When serving windows boot loader, we may encounter the situation of we keep the boot loader files in folders. To solve this problem, we may use the file name remapping option available in tftp service.service tftp
{
disable = no
socket_type = dgram
protocol = udp
wait = yes
user = root
server = /usr/sbin/in.tftpd
server_args = -v -m /var/lib/tftpboot/rules -s /var/lib/tftpboot
per_source = 11
cps = 100 2
flags = IPv4
}
# vi /var/lib/tftpboot/rules rg \\ / # convert backslashes to slashes (useful for windows file names)
PXELinux boot menu
You may configure PXE boot menu in tftpboot/pxelinux.cfg
DEFAULT menu.c32
PROMPT 0
LABEL FC13.x86_64
menu label Linux Fedora Core 13 x86_64 (ftp://bee/fc13.x86_64)
KERNEL fc13.x86_64/vmlinuz
APPEND initrd=fc13.x86_64/initrd.img
You should copy the kernel and initrd file from ISO images/pxeboot directory to tftpboot folder.
Boot PXE from client
Once the PXE server is up and ready, you may configure the client machine for network boot. This is usually configure via BIOS setup while start the machine. If the PXE server is setup properly, the PXE boot menu will load and you may start using PXE boot service.
