Linux Networking Cookbook

16.7. Fedora Network Installation via PXE Netboot

Problem

You want to netboot your installation, instead of using some sort of physical boot media. Your PCs have network interfaces that support netbooting or Etherboot diskettes, and you have configured the appropriate BIOS settings, so your clients are ready. You have your Fedora-based FTP or HTTP server all set up with a Fedora installation tree. What else do you need to do?

Solution

You need a DHCP server and a TFTP server. In this recipe, we'll put them all on the installation server.

Install these packages on your Fedora-based installation server:

	# yum install tftp-server syslinux dhcp

Use this example dhcpd.conf with your own network addressing. next-server is the address of the TFTP server:

	##dhcpd.conf
	allow booting;
	allow bootp;

	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 192.168.1.175 192.168.1.240;
	          next-server 192.168.1.40;
	          filename "pxelinux.0";
	}

Next, copy the boot files pxelinux.0, vmlinuz, and initrd.img to the tftpboot directory. If you followed Recipe 16.3, vmlinuz and initrd.img are in /var/www/fedora:

	# cp /usr/lib/syslinux/pxelinux.0 /tftpboot
	# cp /var/www/fedora/isolinux/vmlinuz /tftpboot
	# cp /var/www/fedora/isolinux/initrd.img /tftpboot

If you set up an FTP-based installation server according to Recipe 16.4, your boot files are in /var/ftp/fedora.

Create a minimal tftpboot/pxelinux.cfg file:

 DEFAULT pxeboot TIMEOUT 50 LABEL ...