PXE Booting Ubuntu from WDS (Windows Deployment Solutions)

[CLIFFORD ILKAY]

On 02/04/2010 01:20 AM, Chadley Wilson wrote:
>> On 02/03/2010 12:19 AM, Chadley Wilson wrote:
>>> Thank you for some new links, I have my PXE working, it boots
>>> Linux, Windows and freedos.
>>>
>>> The problem I am faced with presently is that the only way the
>>> Ubuntu installer runs - is in text mode.
>>
>> Why is this a problem?
>>
> [>]
>
> Hi Clifford, With respect I need to clarify my situation, I hope this
> helps you understand, I am not trying to be rude in anyway so please
> hear me out.
>
> You are an American, I am South African.

I am a Canadian, actually. :)

> So please understand that
> there are some very different aspects to your logic and mine. The
> majority of your country speaks the same language at home and at
> work.

There are 200 languages spoken in Toronto, which makes it one of the 
most diverse places on the planet.

> In my country you are lucky if you meet someone whos first
> language is English. Let me explain. In our country we have 11
> official languages.

We have two, English and French, though you're much more likely to hear 
any one of about ten other languages other than French in Toronto. Our 
city's emergency services hotline (dial 911 to get them) can respond in 
150 languages, apparently.

> Our government sees no reason why we must operate
> in English as a standard. Our people are very poor and most of them
> uneducated. So trying to get a message across to someone who speaks a
> completely different language is very hard. Do you have any idea how
> difficult it is to get a simple computing concept across to a person
> who will probably never own a PC? Let alone play with a variation of
> 20 operating systems. Trust me when I say I need a gui installer. I
> have given training to the staff weekly for the past few years. Yet
> we still get machines back with incorrect partitioning. This is only
> on Ubuntu. With Opensuse and  Redhat based distros we don't have this
> problem. The logical explanation is that there is a point and click
> graphic installer and I also know I am right because I asked them and
> they told me the text mode is too difficult. I know that to you and I
> it seems pathetic. But unfortunately my friend TIA (this is Africa).

I'm not sure I'd trust someone who doesn't understand the text-mode 
installer with the GUI installer for something as potentially dangerous 
as partitioning, that is, if you care about preserving any data on the disk.

>> The partition setup can be modified with ease with the text mode
>> installer too but you shouldn't have to, if you do it right.
> [>] I can do it with ease, but as stated the staff can't...
>
> As you've pointed out,
>> kickstart is an option, though a poor one because kickstart isn't
>> 100% supported in Ubuntu. The preferred scripted installation
>> method in Debian/Ubuntu is "preseed". It's supposedly more
>> powerful, though I've
>
> [>] I could not for the life of me figure out how to pass the preseed
> config file to the PXE kernel... :(

That part isn't difficult. Creating the preseed file is.

>> If you can bring yourself to run Linux for the deployment server,
>> you can do even better by running
>> Cobbler<https://fedorahosted.org/cobbler/>. There is nothing like
>> it in the Debian/Ubuntu world that I know of. (Speak up if you know
>> of something like this, please.) The best way to build your
>> kickstart file in Red Hat and derivatives is to do a manual
>> installation and look in /root/anaconda-ks.cfg. You can use that as
>> a template to modify. Better yet, you can run the GUI Kickstart
>> Configurator (yum install system-config-kickstart) and generate a
>> kickstart file with as much or as little detail as you like. If
>> you're using Cobbler, you can use that kickstart file as the basis
>> of the various Cobbler kickstart templates.
>
> [>] Never heard of cobbler but will definitely check it out.
>
>>
>> I'm doing the opposite of what you're doing. I'm using a Fedora
>> server to deploy Fedora, CentOS, and Windows machines. For the
>> first two, I'm using Cobbler. For Windows, I'm using Unattended
>> <http://unattended.sourceforge.net/>. Cobbler and Unattended
>> aren't integrated so they're two completely different things to
>> manage.
>>
> [>] I am using an my existing firewall/proxy box running Opensuse
> 10.2 and it  hosts FTP for the installations sources for 30 odd
> Distro's.  We allow our clients to pick the distro of their choice.
>
>
>>> Now I have some idea of where to start, It is just not very
>>> clear right now. I need to figure out what the parameters are
>>> that I must pass to the default install kernel... The problem is
>>> that the Ubuntu Kernel doesn't support all the options that other
>>> kernels do... Does anyone here know what all the parameters are
>>> that the default install kernel for Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic will
>>> support? Any ideas?
>>
>> I don't understand what you're trying to accomplish with these
>> kernel options.
> [>]
>
> The kernel command line from my default PXE has an append line, This
> append line allows one to specify options. Like ks=xxxx in redhat, or
> install=xxxx in suse. I am looking for a list of the options that the
> Ubuntu kernel support so that I can work out what my options are for
> staging the installations. For example I would still like to try
> preseed, but the PXE kernel ignores all parameters that I have tried.
> Probably because I don't know what options I have to work with.

Ubuntu supports the same kernel options as the Debian kernel. Have a 
look at the Debian installer docs here: 
<http://wiki.debian.org/DebianInstaller/Preseed>.
-- 
Regards,

Clifford Ilkay
Dinamis
1419-3266 Yonge St.
Toronto, ON
Canada  M4N 3P6

<http://dinamis.com>
+1 416-410-3326