Ubuntu Server PXE Boot Guide

[smashedbotatos]

Make sure you have Internet connectivity, or else this part will fail, but rebooting seems a bit odd.

It might be a piece of faulty hardware?

I am actually in the process of updating the guide, and also reinstalling my server as well. I all of the sudden got busy with a ton of calls last week, so hopefully I will get to work on it more, and post a newer version soon.

 

[ImaPC]

Thank you smashedbotatos, for this guide.
I was working on a project to have a centralised location for my diagnostic/antivirus/install CD's,
and was stuck trying to get Trinity Rescue Kit to run properly, your guide helped very much!

Looking forward to your other guides!

-rw-rw-r-- 1 acs acs 1020 2010-01-20 06:45 mkpxelinux

Not sure if you've managed to sort Trinity out, but I've noticed that for some reason the mkpxelinux isn't executable...

sudo chmod +x mkpxelinux

That might help.

Anyway, I've been messing around with TRK abit, and I've managed to boot up TRK via PXE, run updatetrk,
and after the ISO is created, can copy the files from the tmp folder to the boot server via nfs...

Contents of /etc/exports file;

...
/tftpboot/[I]path_to_trinity[/I]/	(sync,no_wdelay,insecure,no_root_squash,insecure_locks,rw)
...

Of course this is not secure in the real world, but for testing this works.

Options for NFS;

sync = Reply only after disk write
no_wdelay = Write disk as soon as possible
insecure = Negation of secure
no_root_squash = Negation of root_squash
insecure_locks = Negation of secure_locks
rw = Read Write

Since root is the default user on TRK, no_root_squash is needed to allow remote connections.

Other options would be to add a Network Range.

Then I run a custom script after updatetrk has finished.

#!/bin/bash
rsync -r --progress /tmp/trkrebuild/trkcd/ /trk

 

[Waldpiek]

Wow.. great !! But......

First of all, thanks for this great guide.

I already have an Ubuntu server running, but as mentioned earlier in this tread, it would be very nice to have the Kaspersky Rescue disk running from pxe, and, as an ultimate feature, do something with automated updates.

Reason for this is that I use the Kaspersky Rescue cd A LOT, seems to do the best job in my experience

Greetings from the Netherlands, Frans

 

[ImaPC]

First of all, thanks for this great guide.

I already have an Ubuntu server running, but as mentioned earlier in this tread, it would be very nice to have the Kaspersky Rescue disk running from pxe, and, as an ultimate feature, do something with automated updates.

Reason for this is that I use the Kaspersky Rescue cd A LOT, seems to do the best job in my experience

Greetings from the Netherlands, Frans

I've been messing around with KRD, and i can get the 1st section to pxe boot, but can't boot to the bit after you make your selection at the window...

The reason is, nfs hasn't been included in the squashfs.img file.

Even ping fails to connect from the "Live cd"

 

[acs]

Thanks Imapc

sudo chmod +x mkpxelinux

was what I needed to progress.
cheers

 

[ImaPC]

No problem ACS, I'm highly suprised no one noticed it before...

 

[smashedbotatos]

I am going to work on adding KAV also. I havgogol some others to boot with out NFS support to boot I can get KAV to boot!! Prob the quick loading ISO to memory way.

Only problem I keep running in to is having to manually update virus defs on all the AV programs. Also looking for a solution for that, I might create a cron based script to run an av def update for certain ones. None of them support read write, because they all use squashfs or casper, and those are ment to be read only for live CD's.

I really like Bitdefender, but it is too much of a PITA to use via PxE. In the future I hope they fix the casper script that causes that network problem.

What I really want is to be able to have virus def on a NAS that update once a week that I can point to with in one of these rescue disks. Panda Safe Disk is the closest I have come to one that kinda supports such a thing.

 

[ImaPC]

I am going to work on adding KAV also. I havgogol some others to boot with out NFS support to boot I can get KAV to boot!! Prob the quick loading ISO to memory way.

The problem isnt getting it to boot properly, the main problem is getting KAV to use nfs to allow booting the squashfs.img, but as i found, the current Gentoo squashfs file doesn't have nfs support in the kernel.

 

[ImaPC]

But the whole point of having it boot up via PXE nfs, is so that it can be updated

 

[Xander]

Like Jim (16k), I'm interested in getting this working in a VM. My XP bench machine is pretty much always on but I don't want to add another system to the mix.

Question is: Since Linux is distributable, wouldn't it be kosher for someone to torrent the VHD file?

 

[Rodrick]

Every component and everything on that VHD would need to be distributable. I'm sure that at some point in the setup you could stop and distribute that, but once you start putting any images into the machine to be booted into via PXE…it gets hazy.

 

[smashedbotatos]

That would be fine, I can go ahead a create a VHD file, but leave the paid stuff and windows ISO's out of it. I don't think I have the bandwidth to torrent though.

Depending on the size I may be able to upload it somewhere for someone else to torrent.

EDIT:
I actually already have a vhd of this lol forgot I did that. it isn't complete, but I did it when I wrote the guide. I may be able to upload to it my dropbox over night. I only have 2GB of space on it though. So I will have to see if it will work. Unless someone has a server or FTP for me to upload to, must agree to seed it for me.

 

[kevinjhaag]

Like Jim (16k), I'm interested in getting this working in a VM. My XP bench machine is pretty much always on but I don't want to add another system to the mix.

Question is: Since Linux is distributable, wouldn't it be kosher for someone to torrent the VHD file?

I agree... This would be great if someone has it to share. I'm willing to host it as a direct download too... Either my dropbox account (4.5GB), my recent box.net account (50GB), another online account (questionable; but unlimited) or my webhost. So just let me know, my friend. Thanks!

Kevin

 

[smashedbotatos]

I am working on creating the image as we speak. Should be about 2GB when I am done. Pretty much all you will have to do is put the iso files in place or extract them to the proper folder.

EDIT
Ok image is almost done.
As of right now I have a few notes on it.

1. I have got to fix my guide....I wrote it and was having trouble following certain parts.

2. You will have to either change the fog configuration in the image, or run the fog installer over again. It may erase the main menu though.

3. I am having no issue at all booting from this VHD image on my network. So it does work with no issue, but YOU MUST CONFIGURE it to work with your network.

4. I will be uploading it overnight and giving a link for download from my dropbox. (Possibly creating another guide for using this version.)

 

[ImaPC]

I am working on creating the image as we speak. Should be about 2GB when I am done. Pretty much all you will have to do is put the iso files in place or extract them to the proper folder.

EDIT
Ok image is almost done.
As of right now I have a few notes on it.

1. I have got to fix my guide....I wrote it and was having trouble following certain parts.

2. You will have to either change the fog configuration in the image, or run the fog installer over again. It may erase the main menu though.

3. I am having no issue at all booting from this VHD image on my network. So it does work with no issue, but YOU MUST CONFIGURE it to work with your network.

4. I will be uploading it overnight and giving a link for download from my dropbox. (Possibly creating another guide for using this version.)

If theres no ISO's in the VHD and it's just linux distro ready setup to PXE boot, you should be able to RAR/7z it and it will be a lot managable for you to share.

 

[smashedbotatos]

If theres no ISO's in the VHD and it's just linux distro ready setup to PXE boot, you should be able to RAR/7z it and it will be a lot managable for you to share.

Only problem is swap space, if I add a swap partition it enlarges the VHD by the amount of swap space added.

Is it feasible to leave the swap space out and have people add it afterward?

 

[ImaPC]

You could always clean out the swap...

Check what's being used;

free

Empty swap;

swapoff -a && swapon -a

 

[smashedbotatos]

Ok here is what I have.

Uploading a 2.4GB vhd image along with prefs to my dropbox account. Compressed it is 690MB!

The log in credential are as follows.
USERNAME - pxeadmin
PASSWORD - password

USERNAME - fog
PASSWORD - password

The bottom one is used for the webui front end. http://<yourserverip>/fog/management
Please change these passwords!!!


The pxe menu and bg.png are mine personally....don't call me lol

The menu entries have to be added, but the menu and sub-menu is all there and working.

Things that will have to be done to make this usable in your shop or at home.
1. You may need to reconfigure or run setup for fog again. (This shouldn't overwrite anything but program settings.)
a. unless you can use the static ip address 10.5.1.125 and the gateway of 10.5.1.1
2 add a new user or change the password
3. Customize the menu for yourself by editing the theme.cfg file and changing bg.png
4. add the files for the programs you want to boot.
5. add the menu items for each program.

I will be updating this to include menu entries for the basic stuff I use on a daily basis, in the future all you will have to do is edit the menus and add your server ip in the correct places.

I will not be including software or IMG/ISO files, and the opensource ones I will give you links to.
I have included some freeware such as gparted and ntpassword changer

Ubuntu PXE Server VHD

More details later.

 

[smashedbotatos]

Updated, see first post and last post! Let me know if and how it works guys! Thank you!!

 

[4ukh]

hi guys reboot of Ubuntu 11.10 server installation ends up with the following error "frequency out of range 92k / 58hz" any help would be appreciated...

thanks,
4ukh