[gPXE] Convert TFTP boot to gPXE

[Ben Francis]

Dimitri,

The same initrd works when I boot over TFTP using pxelinux.0, but it doesn't
work from the web directory, so I think the initrd is good. Thanks for
archlinux link.

Andrew, I tried loading the initrd first before the kernel, i.e.

gPXE> dhcp net0
DHCP (net0 mac-address).... ok
gPXE> initrd http://ip-addres/gpxe/initrd.............................................................................................................
.....................................................................................................................................................
.....................................................................................................................................................
.......................(20 lines of this)

is the result for about ten minutes now. Same problem.

The initrd IS a huge file at 143MB, but my network downloads that size file
over tftp in about a minute. gPXE was loading the 1.4 MB vmlinuz file in one
second, so it seems gPXE knows how to download a file quickly.

Can the initrd command take parameters like a bigger blocksize, say 4096?

Ben

On Fri, Aug 19, 2011 at 6:08 PM, DiP <aspamkiller at yandex.ru> wrote:

> I think you have to check your initrd.
> For me wiki.archlinux.org directions have been very usefull in that way.
> Look at the "Network boot NFS root" article.
> I hope my working configuration will be usefull for you:
>
> dd if=/srv/mixer/boot/gpxe-1.0.1-gpxe.usb of=/dev/<flash_card>
>
> for booting client from that flashcard (I use it for clients that cannot
> boot from network)
>
> dhcpd.conf
>
> allow booting;
> allow bootp;
> group{
>        option domain-name "home";
>        option domain-name-servers 192.168.0.254;
>        server-name "server.home";
>        next-server 192.168.0.254;
>        if exists dhcp-parameter-request-list {
>                option dhcp-parameter-request-list = concat(option
>                dhcp-parameter-request-list,d0,d1,d2,d3); }
>        host mixer {
>                hardware ethernet 00:30:4f:12:d9:a6;
>                fixed-address 192.168.0.51;
>                option routers 192.168.0.254;
>                site-option-space "pxelinux";
>                option pxelinux.magic f1:00:74:7e;
>                option pxelinux.configfile "pxelinux.cfg/default";
>                option pxelinux.pathprefix "http://server.home/";
>                filename "http://server.home/boot.txt";
>        }
> }
>
> /srv/mixer/boot/boot.txt
>
> #!gpxe
> echo Greetings!
> kernel http://server.home/vmlinuz-linux  rootfstype=nfs root=/dev/nfs
> nfsroot=192.168.0.254:/srv/mixer,v3,rsize=16384,wsize=16384 ip=::::::dhcp
> initrd http://server.home/initramfs-linux.img boot
>
> /etc/exports
>
> /srv/mixer 192.168.0.0/24(rw,fsid=0,no_root_squash,no_subtree_check,async)<http://192.168.0.0/24%28rw,fsid=0,no_root_squash,no_subtree_check,async%29>
>
> and I have working archlinux installation in /srv/mixer/
>
> from nginx.conf
>
>    server {
>      listen 192.168.0.254;
>      server_name server.home;
>      charset utf-8;
>      access_log logs/tftp.access.log;
>      root /srv/mixer/boot;
>      autoindex on;
>    }
>
>
> If you want to boot your client from the standard network card ROM you have
> to change
>
>        filename "http://server.home/boot.txt";
>        to
>        filename "http://server.home/gpxelinux.0";
> so the BIOS of the card will boot gpxelinux, who will get paramethers from
> pxelinux.cfg/default where contents is:
>
> default linux
> label linux
> kernel http://server.home/vmlinuz-linux
> append initrd=http://server.home/initramfs-linux.img rootfstype=nfs
> root=/dev/nfs nfsroot=192.168.0.254:/srv/mixer,v3,rsize=16384,wsize=16384
> ip=::::::dhcp
>
> I placed all those files and dirs, eg pxelinux.cfg/ boot.txt gpxelinux.0 in
> the /srv/mixer/boot folder.
>
> //Dimitri
>
> On Fri, 19 Aug 2011 15:30:40 +0000
> Ben Francis <wirelessben at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > I have a netboot system that works over TFTP.  It consists of vmlinuz and
> > initrd.
> >
> > I want to convert it to gPXE so it will boot across subnets.
> >
> > So I put the files on a web server and tried to test from the gPXE
> command
> > line:
> >
> > *gPXE> kernel http://ip-address/gpxe/vmlinuz
> > *
> > That command works. However,
> >
> > *gPXE> initrd http://ip-address/gpxe/initrd
> > *
> > just slowly fills up the screen with periods. I tried using the
> > *append *command
> > from the working pxelinux setup:
> >
> > *append ramdisk_blocksize=4096 initrd=/gpxe/initrd root=/dev/ram0
> > ramdisk_size=144000000 console=ttyS3 splash=silent vga=791
> > *
> > but gpxe doesn't have append.
> >
> > The initrd is about 143MB.
> >
> > What to do?
> >
> > Ben
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