PXE server that is not DHCP server

[Eberhard Roloff]

Lev Lafayette wrote:
> On Wed, 2007-08-01 at 02:12 -0400, Matthew Flaschen wrote:
>> Lev Lafayette wrote:
>>> Hey people (delurk etc),
>>>
>>> Is there information on how to set up a PXE server when it is *not* the
>>> main DHCP server?
>>>
>>> I was hoping that it would be as simple as adding in a "next-server"
>>> line in dhcpd.conf, but evidently this does not work.
>>>
>>> This requirement comes about from Ubuntu 6.06 not recognising a CD-ROM
>>> drive during an install. Pretty entertaining considering that it has to
>>> boot from the CD-ROM and begin the install to get to that message :-)
>> Ah, but it is your BIOS that recognizes the CD-ROM and boots into the 
>> Ubuntu installer.  The Ubuntu installer just wakes up and says, "Where 
>> am I?"
> 
> Good point Matthew. It's still amusing tho' :-)
> 
> The beast in question (and I mean a beast) is a Gigabyte 965GM-DS2 with
> a generic Lite-On DVD/CD ROM drive... I have a PXE serber and DHCP is
> managed by the router. This is all pretty normal so far (and all Dapper
> with an attempted Dapper install).
> 
> The grand thing about the BIOS is that is has an option for PXE booting
> but *only* through the onboard NIC (it won't try the installed NIC)...
> which of course the DHCP server doesn't pick up and ergo, no PXE
> install...
> 
> So with no PXE install for Dapper and no DCD drive for Dapper I decided
> to install Edgy.. which installed just fine *except* there's a whole new
> slate of problems related to Xen and LVM for that distro....
> 
> It's just as well I have a good sense of humour :-) 
> 
> 
Although it is to late:

If your CD is not recognized by your bios or something else,
smartbootmanager (http://sourceforge.net/projects/btmgr/) often comes in
very handy, since it starts from your hd bootsector and then boots your
cdrom from there.

In regard to pxe booting from your additional network card, you can use
rom-o-matic http://rom-o-matic.net/ to generate an etherboot rom image
that you can use to do etherbooting by us9ing the rom image from
diskette or CDrom.

regards
Eberhard