PXE Boot - Select Your Flavour
After messing around with TFTP in my previous post I decided to investigate further into what I can do with TFTP and PXE. Browsing through the Debian mirror I found a tar called “netboot.tar.gz” so I decided to decompress it into my /tftpboot and see what happens.
I created a new diskless 2.6 vmware image and started it, up pops debian install bootsplash. I was so satisfied with the lack of configuration on my behalf that I started reading more documentation about creating menus for PXE booting. I came up with a fairly clean solution comprised of :
Ubuntu : Jaunty, Intrepid, Gutsy
CentOS : 5.2, 4.7
Mandriva : 2009
Fedora : 9
Debian : Lenny, Etch, Sid
All of the above worked perfectly so I am now researching iSCSI for diskless clients, unfortunately I am out of hard drives so I will attempt it on a USB thumb drive.
If you are interested in a copy of my /tftpboot and a quick tutorial how to set it up leave me a comment and I will post a link, otherwise I am guessing no one cares.
Yeah, PXE booting can be very handy, especially in a pinch. You never know when you might need to do an OS install on a client that doesn’t have a working optical drive, or need to remotely do an OS install on multiple computers.
The only thing I can think of that is more handy than PXE booting is target disk mode, but that’s limited in scope to FireWire equipped Macs at the moment. That gives you essentially the same advantages as PXE, plus of course, the ever so handy ability to use the Mac as an external drive.