PXE - HTTP fetch root file system
Laurent Dumont
ml at coldnorthadmin.com
Fri Nov 4 01:37:16 UTC 2016
Hi gents,
I'm working on setting up a diskless PXE system where the root
filesystem is served by http instead of the traditional TFTP method.
TFTP is a rather slow process and I can have up to 30-40 computers
booting up. I know that NFS is also an option but the downside is that
only what is actually being used by the remote OS is being transferred
into RAM. Each time a new application is accessed, the remote system has
to fetch the files.
It's also a pretty big point of failure if the NFS server is down and a
remote host needs to access something.
I was able to get the PXE HTTP to work using a Kali ISO and a Debian
live CD. When I attempted the same using a Ubuntu ISO, I get a Kernel
panic with a "cant mount /scripts/live".
Here is the relevant configs.
pxelinux.cfg/default
> label Ubuntu 16.04
> MENU LABEL Patate
> KERNEL vmlinuz.efi
> APPEND initrd=initrd.lz boot=live
> fetch=http://192.168.25.167/filesystem.squashfs
initrd.lz and vmlinuz.efi from the latest Ubuntu CD. TFTP and HTTP
files/permissions are okay.
Thanks!
Laurent
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