History diff of PXE Server (Open)(No. 6)

The added line is THIS COLOR.
The deleted line is THIS COLOR.
[by Nugraha, 2009.05.08]

We want to make a diskless computing system so that we need a PXE Server. PXE stands for "Pre-boot eXecution Environment". PXE is a special extension of services provided by the Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP). It uses a Trivial File Transfer Protocol (TFTP) server to provide minimal boot to a network client. Let's try to configure it!

#contents

**What we need [#pe839496]
- A computer with linux operating system to be configured as a server. Here we use Fedora Linux. This computer should have at least two network interface cards (NIC). One of the cards will be used to connect the server with client.
- Computer that acts as a client. For a checking purpose we need this computer to have SSH facility (it does not matter to use Windows or Linux).
- Network hub and cables.

**Checking [#r1faf503]
***Network setting [#j7b294ed]
- Turn on the hub, connect a network cable from Fedora Linux computer (server) to the hub (e.g. to channel 1).
- Connect again a network cable from the client computer (Windows/Linux) to the hub (e.g. to channel 2).
- Open Network configuration on Fedora Linux using root privilege. We should set network interface card that has been connected to the hub.
- Assuming the network card is eth1, we set it to have:
-- IP Address: 192.168.1.1
-- Subnet Mask: 255.255.255.0
- On the client computer, set the IP Address statically to be:
-- IP Address: 192.168.1.2
-- Subnet Mask: 255.255.255.0

***SSH check [#tad4148a]
- Open SSH software on client computer, for example, Putty or any command line software:
 ssh username@192.168.1.1
- If username is "nugraha" and hostname of server is "rsaito-necPC", we must get the following line after succesfully login:
 nugraha@rsaito-necPC:~$
it means that we can access the server from the client.

**DHCP and TFTP Server [#s9d399d8]
- Install dhcp, syslinux, and tftp-server (su root)
 # yum install dhcp syslinux tftp-server
***DHCP Configuration [#b4fdd07c]
- Edit /etc/dhcpd.conf. The following is a configuration for a network that uses:
-- 192.168.1.0/24 addressing
-- Dynamic address will be provided between 192.168.1.100 and 192.168.1.240
-- DHCP/PXE server at IP address 192.168.1.1
 allow booting;
 allow bootp;
 ddns-update-style interim;
 ignore client-updates;
 subnet 192.168.1.0 netmask 255.255.255.0 {
	  option subnet-mask 255.255.255.0;
	  option broadcast-address 192.168.1.255;
	  range dynamic-bootp 192.168.1.100 192.168.1.240;
	  next-server 192.168.1.1;
 } 
-- Turn on dhcp and xinetd
 # /sbin/service dhcpd start
 # /sbin/service xinetd start
 # chkconfig dhcpd on
 (the last line is for activating dhcp on booting process)

-- Check if the dhcp server can work. Open a client computer which is connected to server and set the TCP/IP to dynamically set for IP address. Then try again:
  ssh username@192.168.1.1
If we can connect, it means DHCP has successfully been configured.

***TFTP Configuration [#nfd5db55]
-System boot will be put on /tftpboot and we need to copy the PXE boot image too.
 su -
 cd /tftpboot
 cp /usr/lib/syslinux/pxelinux.0 .
-Create a minimal /tftpboot/pxelinux.cfg  file
 DEFAULT pxeboot
 TIMEOUT 50
 LABEL pxeboot
      KERNEL vmlinuz
      APPEND initrd=initrd.img
 ONERROR LOCALBOOT 0
-Turn on the tftp service:
 # /sbin/chkconfig tftp on

to be continued...
**Copy system data for booting [#v32daf81]

 # yum install busybox-anaconda
 # mkdir /tftpboot/f9
 # mkdir /tftpboot/f9/root
 # mkdir /tftpboot/f9/snapshot
 # rsync -v -a -e ssh \
 --exclude='/proc/*' --exclude='/sys/*' --exclude='/dev/*'\
 --exclude='/media/*'   --exclude='/tmp/*' --exclude='/misc/*'\
 172.17.4.178:/ /tftpboot/f9/root
History diff of PXE Server (Open) (No. 6)
