gPXE Server

[Lisa Kachold]

As you might remember, I contacted Larry and he wanted a long discussion
about the gPXE system and seemed to want to build it himself, asking about
distro and what was required for making the menu's, etc.  [it's a quick
script to make a menu - a few exist but only needed for usb boot menu's].
Larry told me he was not going to be at the Installfest to give me the
equipment, so I should not come last time.  Larry seemed to have an idea
that building this was his area and didn't want to just hand over the
equipment to me, so I sent him links on how to do this, which is very easy.

Here's some of our discussion:

What is the full stop error you are/were having, Larry?

You can't use a PXE server in chaining mode, since it alternately fails to
recognize PXE. PXE requires a list of each of the distros. There are a lot
of other disadvantages over gPXE, like ARM systems can't see gPXE systems -
see the links below.

Did you know that Ubuntu 10.04 can't be interchanged into place for a Debian
distro?   If it says Debian, it means Debian.

the ltsp project includes gPXE:

sudo apt-get install ltsp-server-standalone

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/UbuntuLTSP/LTSPQuickInstall

http://www.ardyans.co.cc/ltsp-with-ubuntu-10-04.htm

This is really not rocket science!
gPXE is way easier than PXE:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GPXE

http://www.ask.com/wiki/GPXE

Here's the straight gPXE (without ltsp) install howto:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zEhaTF8NnDI&feature=related

a gPXE server IS a vast improvement over what you are trying to do BTW.

Basicly you want to be able to boot into the iso from the client.  Here's
what that looks like:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m6aq1emO9Kc&feature=related  Google gPXE
Project
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eNF__Gf0sN8&feature=related


The list of distros does not matter for a gPXE build:

|   |   |-- Fedora-11-i686-Live
|   |   |   |-- Fedora-11-i686-Live-CHECKSUM
|   |   |   |-- Fedora-11-i686-Live.iso
|   |   |   `-- Fedora-11-i686-Live.log
|   |   `-- Fedora-11-x86_64-Live

>From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GPXE#Bootloader<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GPXE#Bootloader>
:

Although its basic role was to implement a PXE stack, gPXE can be used as a
full-featured network bootloader. It can fetch files from multiple network
protocols [1]<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GPXE#cite_note-Google_TechTalk_-_gPXE-0>,
such as TFTP, NFS<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_File_System_%28protocol%29>,
HTTP[2]<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GPXE#cite_note-Booting_your_machine_over_HTTP-1>or
FTP <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File_Transfer_Protocol>, and can boot PXE,
ELF, Linux, FreeBSD <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FreeBSD>,
multiboot<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiboot_Specification>,
EFI <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extensible_Firmware_Interface> and Windows
CE <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_CE>

images.

In addition, it is scriptable and can load COMBOOT and COM32
SYSLINUX<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SYSLINUX>extensions. This allows
for instance to build a graphical menu for network
boot.
see:  http://rom-o-matic.net/

ROM-o-matic.net dynamically generates gPXE and Etherboot network booting
images

There are a great deal of people who support gPXE on the Ubuntu forums under
ltsp.

If you want me to build it let me know when and where to pick up the
hardware.

Come to the Hackfest Tomorrow @ Gangplankhq.com in Chandler Noon - 3PM
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