RHEL5 Installation Guide - 33.2. PXE Boot Configuration

33.2. PXE Boot Configuration

The next step is to copy the files necessary to start the installation to the tftp server so they can be found when the client requests them. The tftp server is usually the same server as the network server exporting the installation tree.

To copy these files, run the Network Booting Tool on the NFS, FTP, or HTTP server. A separate PXE server is not necessary.

33.2.1. Command Line Configuration

If the network server is not running X, the pxeos command line utility, which is part of the system-config-netboot package, can be used to configure the tftp server files as described in Section 33.4, “TFTPD”:

pxeos -a -i "
<description>
" -p <NFS|HTTP|FTP> -D 0 -s 
client.example.com
 \ 
-L 
<net-location>
 -k 
<kernel>
 -K 
<kickstart>
 
<os-identifer>

The following list explains the options:

-a — Specifies that an OS instance is being added to the PXE configuration.
-i " <description> " — Replace " <description> " with a description of the OS instance.
-p <NFS|HTTP|FTP> — Specify which of the NFS, FTP, or HTTP protocols to use for installation. Only one may be specified.
-D <0|1> — Specify "0" which indicates that it is not a diskless configuration since pxeos can be used to configure a diskless environment as well.
-s client.example.com — Provide the name of the NFS, FTP, or HTTP server after the -s option.
-L <net-location> — Provide the location of the installation tree on that server after the -L option.
-k <kernel> — Provide the specific kernel version of the server installation tree for booting.
-K <kickstart> — Provide the location of the kickstart file, if available.
<os-identifer> — Specify the OS identifier, which is used as the directory name in the /tftpboot/linux-install/ directory.

If FTP is selected as the installation protocol and anonymous login is not available, specify a username and password for login, with the following options before <os-identifer> in the previous command:

-A 0 -u 
<username>
 -p 
<password>

For more information on command line options available for the pxeos command, refer to the pxeos man page.