✎ appnoted - Etherboot/gPXE Wiki

This page is read only. You can view the source, but not change it. Ask your administrator if you think this is wrong.
======How to network boot operating systems with gPXE======

=====Introduction=====
gPXE is a new version of the well know Etherboot project.\\ 
The project created network booting code that allows computers to load their operating system from a network.\\ 
The code can be stored in a number of places, including BIOS Flash, EPROMs, floppy, CD, HD, or other bootable media.


=====Required software=====
Software used in this HowTo:

  *Ubuntu Linux 9.04
  *gPXE 0.9.7: http://etherboot.org/wiki/download
  *SysLinux 3.75: http://syslinux.zytor.com/
  *Internet Systems Consortium DHCP server V3.1.1 - http://www.isc.org
  *TFTP server from Linux NetKit - http://www.h cs.harvard.edu/~dholland/computers/netkit.html


**NOTE**: Although I used Linux in this HowTo you can use any O.S running DHCP and TFTP servers to make this work.\\ 
My boot server at home runs NetBSD and works great with this setup. All you need is compiled gPXE binary.


=====Installation=====

Run following commands to install TFTP and DHCP servers:
  # apt-get install tftpd
  # apt-get install dhcp3-server

Download tarball of gPXE from http://kernel.org/pub/software/utils/boot/gpxe/gpxe-0.9.7.tar.gz\\ 
Extract it and compile 
  # cd gpxe-0.9.7/src
  # make
The file we need is called undionly.kpxe and you can find it in 
  # gpxe-0.9.7/src/bin 



=====Configuration=====

====How to setup the DHCP server====

Edit the config file:
  /etc/dhcp3/dhcpd.conf 
so it looks like this:

  allow booting;
  allow bootp;
  ddns-update-style none;
  log-facility local7;
  default-lease-time -1;
  max-lease-time 7200;
  authoritative;
  option space gpxe;
  option gpxe-encap-opts code 175 = encapsulate gpxe;
  option gpxe.bus-id code 177 = string;
   
  subnet 192.168.1.0 netmask 255.255.255.0 {
    use-host-decl-names on;
    range 192.168.1.26 192.168.1.30;
    option routers 192.168.1.1;
    option broadcast-address 192.168.1.255;
    option root-path "192.168.1.1:/home/tftpboot/";
    next-server 192.168.1.1;
    if not exists gpxe.bus-id {
          filename "gpxe/undionly.kpxe";
    } else {
  #       filename "http://192.168.1.1/boot/boot.php";
          filename "gpxe/menu.gpxe";
    }
    server-name "lapdance";
    server-identifier 192.168.1.1;
  }

I will not be going into details here. This config file is using the "conventional TFTP" configuration with **/home/tftpboot**  as it's relative root directory fetching all the files from there.\\ 
The subnet definition will hand out IPs for our clients from defined range.\\ 
When PXE booting your client, it will first download the gPXE binary which will "take over" from there and download it's own configuration file.\\ 
The **if not exists gpxe.bus-id** option is used to first hand out the undionly.kpxe file to PXE and then the menu.gpxe configuration file to gPXE.


**Note**: Notice the filename "http://192.168.1.1/boot/boot.php"; option. It allows you to fetch config from a HTTP server.\\ 
It can be a dymamically created config or a simple txt file as menu.gpxe but downloaded over HTTP.\\ 
For more info read http://etherboot.org/wiki/appnotes/authmenus


====How to setup the TFTP server====

The TFTP server will run as inetd service. Therefor we have to edit /etc/inetd.conf so it looks like this:
  tftp            dgram   udp     wait    nobody  /usr/sbin/tcpd  /usr/sbin/in.tftpd /home/tftpboot



==== How to setup gPXE====

Create directory for our files:
  /home/tftpboot/gpxe
And create there a text file called menu.gpxe looking as follows:
  #!gpxe
  chain menu.c32 menu.cfg
This file is going to chain load menu.c32 and our menu config file. You can replace menu.c32 with vesamenu.c32 for a more fancy boot window.

As mentioned above, to be able to create a boot menu for gPXE we will need either menu.c32 or vesamenu.c32 file which are distributed with SysLinux.\\ 
To obtain one of the files download tarball of SysLinux: http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/boot/syslinux/syslinux-3.75.tar.gz\\ 
Unpack it and go to the menu directory:
  syslinux-3.75/com32/menu/
There you will find two files, menu.c32 and vesamenu.c32. The first one can be used to create simple CLI menus and the last one alows to create more "fancy" graphical menus.\\ 
The menu.c32 works well over serial cable and we will use it in this HowTo.


Copy  syslinux-3.75/com32/menu/menu.c32 and gpxe-0.9.7/src/bin/undionly.kpx to /home/tftpboot/gpxe


Now create a config file for our boot menu and call it menu.cfg (still in /home/tftpboot/gpxe directory).
It will look like this:
 
  PROMPT 0
  ALLOWOPTIONS 0
  MENU ROWS 6
   
  MENU TITLE PLEASE CHOSE A SYSTEM TO BOOT
    
  LABEL -
        MENU LABEL NETBOOT
        MENU DISABLE
  LABEL SuSe
    MENU LABEL ^1 SUSE
    MENU INDENT 1
    KERNEL vmlinuz-suse
    APPEND ro root=/dev/hda1 initrd=initrd-suse.img
   
  MENU SEPARATOR
     
  LABEL -
          MENU LABEL DEBIAN
          MENU DISABLE
  LABEL DEBIAN
    MENU LABEL ^1 DEBIAN
    MENU INDENT 1
    KERNEL vmlinuz-debian
    APPEND ro root=/dev/hda1 initrd=initrd-debian.img
    
  LABEL UBUNTU
    MENU LABEL ^2 UBUNTU
    MENU INDENT 1
    KERNEL vmlinuz-ubuntu
    APPEND ro root=/dev/hda1 initrd=initrd-ubuntu.img
  

The options are described here: http://syslinux.zytor.com/wiki/index.php/SYSLINUX\\ 
How to create bootable Linux images is out of scope of this HowTo.



===== Starting services=====

Now we need to start the TFTP and DHCP services

To start the inetd server:
  # /etc/init.d/openbsd-inetd start
The DHCP server:
  #/etc/init.d/dhcp3-server start


===== Testing =====
Boot your computer using PXE network booting.\\ 
If all went you should be able to see message about DHCP address and then gPXE will get downloaded and show a menu on your screen.


===== Screenshots =====

And some screenshots. Loading of gPXE with VirtualBox :

Initial boot with PXE/gPXE:\\ 
{{:gpxe-initial.png|}}

An example of gPXE menu:\\ 
{{:gpxe-menu.png|}}


=====Links=====

http://syslinux.zytor.com/wiki/index.php/Comboot/menu.c32\\ 
http://syslinux.zytor.com/wiki/index.php/SYSLINUX
\\ 
\\ 
\\ 
That's all folks!
\\ 
[[User:YazzY|Marcin Jessa]]
Trace: • bootbymacaddress • fnrec • gpxeonvmware • compaq-armada-flashing • wirelessboot • san_transfer • mailinglists • authmenus • gdbstub • doc • make_usb_drive • disklessdos • disklesswin98 • appnotes