[PXE Server Ubuntu]: Ubuntu 14.10 PXE server installation

Ubuntu 14.10 PXE server installation

This guide explains how to configure PXE server in Ubuntu 14.10 PXE Server, stands for preboot execution environment, is used to enable a network computer to boot only from a network interface card. This method will be very helpful, if a System Administrator wants to install many systems which doesn’t have a CD/DVD device on the network. PXE environment needs a DHCP server that distributes the IP addresses to the client systems, and a TFTP server that downloads the installation files to the PXE clients. You don’t need any CD/DVD or USB bootable drives to install client systems. Just, copy the ISO images on the PXE server and start installing your Linux clients via network using PXE server.

I do not issue any guarantee that this will work for you!

1 Preliminary Note

I have fresh installed Ubuntu 14.10 server, on which I am going to install the PXE server. My Ubuntu server have hostnameserver1.example.com and IP as 192.168.0.100

You can have your Ubuntu server installed from the tutorial. We need a DHCP server to have this setup. I will here install DHCP-server, tftp-server and other configurations as explained in next chapters.

2 Install DHCP Server

Now we will install these packages at the Ubuntu 14.10 server end as:

apt-get update
apt-get install isc-dhcp-server

Now the configuration part will include as:

nano /etc/default/isc-dhcp-server

Add the interface as follows:

[...]
INTERFACES="eth0"

Next Edit the the file dhcpd.conf as follows:

nano /etc/dhcp/dhcpd.conf

[...]
# option definitions common to all supported networks...
option domain-name "example.com";
option domain-name-servers server1.example.com;

subnet 192.168.0.0 netmask 255.255.255.0 {
 range 192.168.0.20 192.168.0.30;
 option routers 192.168.0.1;
 option broadcast-address 192.168.0.255;
}
default-lease-time 600;
max-lease-time 7200


[...]
# network, the authoritative directive should be uncommented.
authoritative;
[...]

Next Restart the service as follows:

service isc-dhcp-server start
service isc-dhcp-server stop

3 PXE installation and configuration

Next install PXE server as follows:

apt-get install apache2 tftpd-hpa inetutils-inetd

Configuration includes:

 nano /etc/default/tftpd-hpa

[...]
RUN_DAEMON="yes"
OPTIONS="-l -s /var/lib/tftpboot"

Again

nano /etc/inetd.conf

[...]
tftp    dgram   udp    wait    root    /usr/sbin/in.tftpd /usr/sbin/in.tftpd -s /var/lib/tftpboot

Next restart the services as follows:

service tftpd-hpa restart

Modify dhcp configuration accordingly for the PXE server:

nano /etc/dhcp/dhcpd.conf

At the end of the file add the entries:

[...]
allow booting;
allow bootp;
option option-128 code 128 = string;
option option-129 code 129 = text;
next-server 192.168.0.100;
filename "pxelinux.0";

Restart the service as:

service isc-dhcp-server restart

4 Configuring installation media

Now we will mount the external media as follows:

mount /dev/sr0 /mnt

Now add the files as follows:

cp -avr /mnt/install/netboot/* /var/lib/tftpboot/

mkdir -p /var/www/html/ubuntu14.10

cp -avr /mnt/* /var/www/html/ubuntu14.10/

Now make the changes in the file pxelinux.cfg/default as follows:

nano /var/lib/tftpboot/pxelinux.cfg/default

[...]
label linux
        kernel ubuntu-installer/amd64/linux
        append ks=http://192.168.0.100/ks.cfg vga=normal initrd=ubuntu-installer/amd64/initrd.gz
ramdisk_size=16432 root=/dev/rd/0 rw  --

Lastly we need to make our DHCP server fully compatible to PXE environment as follows:

nano /etc/dhcp/dhcpd.conf

[...]
allow booting;
allow bootp;
option option-128 code 128 = string;
option option-129 code 129 = text;
next-server 192.168.0.100;
filename "pxelinux.0";

Now we are ready for the Network based installations. Simply booth any other device and boot over network will make the installations over the network.

Cheers now we have a successfully configured PXE-server over Ubuntu 14.10 :)