Red Hat Kickstart via PXE Boot

This was helpful. What if I want to put the KS file and Red Hat ISO/installation tree on an NFS share vs TFTP server, would this still work?

yeah it would.

adding the lines to dhcpd.conf is not enough.

you must have an tftp server beside the nfs server.

the dhcp should point to tftp server. are you going to use w2k as tftp server or linux ?
if you have a linux tftp and nfs server why not using it as DHCP as well ?
im binding mac address with ip address so the DHCP does not interfere with the domain dhcp.
this is my dhcpd.conf .you will need to migrate it to w2k3.
the important option is the next-server which point to the tftp server.
the name pxelinux.0 is the pxe boot software which load the vmlinuz , initrd and the kick start file.

deny unknown-clients;
not authoritative;
option subnet-mask 255.0.0.0;
allow bootp;
allow booting;
ddns-update-style ad-hoc;

subnet 10.0.0.0 netmask 255.0.0.0 {
                                #option routers;
                                option broadcast-address 10.255.255.255;
}

group hosts {
                next-server 10.0.0.251;
                filename "pxelinux.0";

                host host1 {
                                hardware ethernet 00:11:22:33:44:5;
                                fixed-address 10.0.0.1;
                                }
                }

dont forget to restart after change

the tftp  should run on the same server as the dhcp.
the tftp directory /tftpboot should have 777 permissions

the boot sequence is something like this

1 the node ask for dhcp address.
2 the dhcp matching the mac address with its ip address and reply the node with its ip address and tftp server
3 the node with the new ip address download the from the tftp server the init file which look something like this:

DEFAULT rhel5.2_x86_64
LABEL rhel5.2_x86_64
KERNEL vmlinuz_rhel5.2_x86_64
APPEND ksdevice=bootif initrd=initrd_rhel5.2_x86_64.img load_ramdisk=1 network ks=nfs:10.0.0.3:/vol/vol1/install/rhel5.2_x86_64.cfg
IPAPPEND 2

the file point to vmlinuz, initrd and kickstart file.
in this stage the new vmlinuz is loaded and running. it asks again for ip address and continue installing according to the kickstart file.

The idea was to just use a Windows server for everything so I didnt have to build a new linux one (I have a bunch of windows servers that I can use). This is what I have so far:

-W2K3 server running DHCP
   -I add the dhcp options 13, 43, 60, 66 and 67.
   -for Boot Server Name (option 66) I set value to the IP of another W2K3 server where I was planning on creating a share for the installation and kickstart file
   -for Bootfile Name (option 67) I set value to the kickstart filename.

According to you, option 67 should be the pxeboot file? Where can I get that from? Now that you know my environmwnt (basically windows) what do you propose the best solution is?

im not sure what this options means.
in my linux configuration the dhcp provide the node ip address and a file name ( pxelinux.0 ) to download.
beside the file the tftp server must have other files on it as i mention before.

you can download pxelinux from here
http://syslinux.zytor.com/wiki/index.php/Download
other useful information here
http://syslinux.zytor.com/wiki/index.php/PXELINUX

the vmlinuz and initrd are on your distrib CD inside a directory isolinux

Hi,

option 66 is the name of the server for booting: So you can use another server for boot.
option 67 is the name of pxelinux file.

While you can not use any pxelinux file for this. RedHAT uses a heavily patched kernel so if you don't use the original kernel and initrd it will lock up or some services would not even start.

You don't need to use third party sotware for this for RedHAT comes equipped with PXE preparation tool called "Network Booting Tool". It has both command line and GUI interfaces.

You can find the details here:
http://www.linuxtopia.org/online_books/centos5/centos5_installation_guide/centos5_ch-pxe.html
http://www.redhat.com/docs/manuals/enterprise/RHEL-3-Manual/sysadmin-guide/s1-netboot-pxe-config.html

These documents clearly specify you could use FTP/NFS/HTTP for booting. You'd use your PXE file through TFTP.

You might like to check cobbler and koan tools too. They are all in RedHAT site.


Cheers,
K.

So it seems like in order to create the pxelinux config file which is to be served to the client machine via TFTP I need to run the Network Booting Tool wizard. What if I dont have any redhat machines setup yet? Is there no other way to get the pxelinux file other than installing redhat first and then going through the tool? I have the instllation DVD, would it be on there?