Ubuntu Server PXE Boot Guide

Which would you like to see added?

  • Total voters
    64
smashedbotatos said:
Dbdawn thanks for the input! That is a great menu! In this guide I will be using WinPE to start the Windows installs from a network share. Its not as good as WDS, but it works rather well.

Some of the programs I have added so far work flawlessly, other could use improvement, such as booting WinPE and the like using chainloader.32 instead of using memdisk to load the iso. Which I don't like doing, but I have not figure out how to to the latter with the many different version of WinPE, WinRE and M$ ERD disks. I also can't get that damn NT Password reset to boot properly yet! Maybe its the newer version I have I dunno.
Click to expand...

All WDS does is load a WINPE and automatically connect to a network share. I think you can easily do this without WDS.

I am using an older version of Memtest, NT Password Reset and Parted Magic as the newer version gave me some trouble.
 
4ycr said:
Quick question, you say to use a 64 bit but I have a couple of old P4 systems, can they be used to test things out?
Click to expand...

I apologize, I did word that funny, but yes 32bit will be just fine. Just make sure to use the 32bit flavor of Ubuntu Server.

Reason I said 64bit there was because that is what they reccomended for Ubuntu Server. 32bit systems run this just fine. I am actually using a P4 3.2GHz older Dell Optiplex GX620, I loaded it up with 2gig of ram and a few HDDs one for the OS and the others for Data. The one for the OS is an older 40gig IDE Maxtor from 03 and the other three are newer SATA WD Black 1TB drives I use to host different thing on. I just automount them at boot in /etc/fstab I am hoping to migrate the FOG imaging folder to one of them soon. Other is a SAMBA share for programs/customer backups/documents and such. The last is two partitions one for my personal music which is locked down so only I have access, and the other is my catalogue of OS diskimages, and also folders of extracted OEM windows OS disks. So I can use them VIA winPE for installing over the network.
 
dbdawn said:
All WDS does is load a WINPE and automatically connect to a network share. I think you can easily do this without WDS.

I am using an older version of Memtest, NT Password Reset and Parted Magic as the newer version gave me some trouble.
Click to expand...

The newer Gparted and Clonezilla work almost identical. They need you to have apache installed to host their file system though. I find that methodology odd.

So basically I am doing the same thing WDS does. That is exactly what I do for new OEM machine installs. Boot WinPE from network, and start setup.exe from the share I created.

I just want to figure out how to boot multiple PE and RE's from the extracted image not the iso. It would load much faster that way.
 
just trying to install fog,
Can you clarify step 3 page 2.
open winscp ( on another networked pc???)
I can ping the ubuntu server ip * .*.*65 but win scp will not connect from another windows pc ?? even with username and password just get connection refused??
ta
 
acs said:
just trying to install fog,
Can you clarify step 3 page 2.
open winscp ( on another networked pc???)
I can ping the ubuntu server ip * .*.*65 but win scp will not connect from another windows pc ?? even with username and password just get connection refused??
ta
Click to expand...

Yes from another PC on the same network. If it isn't working make sure you didn't forget to install openSSH. We are not connecting as FTP, have to setup the connection as SCP.

Or use his method
to download pscp goto here http://the.earth.li/~sgtatham/putty/latest/x86/pscp.exe
download pscp to the same folder as you have downloaded fog_0.32.tar.gz
fire up command prompt and go to the directory you have downloaded pscp and fog into and type the following
pscp.exe fog_0.32.tar.gz <usernameCreatedOnServer>@<ipAddressOfServer>:/home/<usernameCreatedOnServer>
in my case the line would read D:\downloads>pscp.exe fog_0.32.tar.gz rudger@192.168.0.5:/home/rudger
accept the rsa2 key fingerprint message
type in the password of the account created on the server and the file will copy
 
Last edited:
I am not sure that open ssh installed correctly, just starting over again.
Last time when it got to the options package it seemed to jump striaght on to next part when I intended to select the ssh package. Will watch what happens at that point again this time

Thanks again.
 
acs said:
I am not sure that open ssh installed correctly, just starting over again.
Last time when it got to the options package it seemed to jump striaght on to next part when I intended to select the ssh package. Will watch what happens at that point again this time

Thanks again.
Click to expand...
Not sure if this is your issue, but use spacebar to select packages, if you hit enter it will just continue to the next screen. :D Fooled me a couple times too!
 
That was the exact issue. !
Not reading the screen before hitting return !!
Got it right second time.

Now past winSCP and installing fog and setting up mysql server.
 
acs said:
That was the exact issue. !
Not reading the screen before hitting return !!
Got it right second time.

Now past winSCP and installing fog and setting up mysql server.
Click to expand...

Good to hear! If you need any more help just ask, and I will try and figure it out for you.
 
This is looking really good, thanks for the time you're putting in. I won't be able to try this out until next week as in the middle of a move but can't wait to get this fully running!
 
Great project, just got my first pxeboot of a netbook going.

Not tried the menu customisation yet but here are a few gotchchas I run into getting fog up and running.Sorry if some of you already know this but it took a little working out for me and so it might help someone else.

When installing Ubuntu use the space bar to select the options for SSH and Samba installation before the return button.

Once Ubuntu is up and running, log in and “ifconfig” will tell you the Ip address of the Ubuntu server.You need this for WINSCP.

When using winSCP you can drag and drop files from your windows desktop to ONLY the /home/usename folder on the Ubuntu box.

Then on the Ubuntu server use

cp /home/username/filename.cfg /tftpboot/menu/filename.cfg to move the file to the required position as per the script.

To make sure you have got the files in the correct position either check again in winscp or use ls-al in the folder on the Ubuntu server.

When adding the fog server make sure you pick the option to use the Ubuntu server as the DHCP server.

Once up and running I modified the /etc/dhcp/dhcpd.conf file to make sure the DHCP range of the Ubuntu server was outside the range of my main router.

When PXE booting the default fog menu only lasts 3 seconds. But can be modified by logging into fog and changing it at “other information”
Hope this helps !
 
Thanks for this! I've been meaning to set up a PXE server, but have been putting it off as I wasn't looking forward to the massive documentation gathering exercise. Your guide coming from the perspective of a PC tech is a great time saver!
 
acs I took the time to add some of that to the guide, and clear it up for people in the future thank you for the feedback! As far as DHCP goes I have 3 options there. I like your idea of using out of range ip's!

codegreen said:
Thanks for this! I've been meaning to set up a PXE server, but have been putting it off as I wasn't looking forward to the massive documentation gathering exercise. Your guide coming from the perspective of a PC tech is a great time saver!
Click to expand...

Thank you! This is the result of a 3 month trial and error process, and I am very happy to share it with everyone. The PXE booting guides I have seen are hard to follow. I hope to avoid that problem! I would love to hear about your success!

16k_zx81 said:
possibly a stupid question, but can I run Ubuntu Server as a VM inside of XP and achieve the same result?
Click to expand...

Yes you can! Just make sure the VM network is set to bridged not NAT. This will give the VM its own ip.


I have just now uploaded a newer version which includes adding a couple diagnostic tools. If there are any tools you would like to see added please let me know and I will try and get them running and add them in for you.
 
Update for the Masses...Chapter 5 Added

Let's see some more success stories!! I want to know if it worked out for you. over 100 downloads of the guide so I know it is circulating, and want to hear about your success or failure so I can adjust my guide accordingly.
 
Downloading Now...

Looking forward to reading the rest of the document, I have so far setup 3 images of Windows OS's all ready for next customers PC that require N&P.

I will look into it further when I have some free time :)
 
Great! The rest of the stuff is fun programs and utilities that I use everyday that I boot via network. Saves a lot of time looking for disks or burning disks.

I really hope you enjoy it and that is helps you speed up some of your processes.
 
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