NetBoot server principle



Requirements

To setup a PXE NetBoot infrastructure you MUST have:

Optional:



Overview of a NetBoot sequence

NetBoot sequence overview (FreeBSD (c))


1. Client broadcasts a DHCPDISCOVER message.

2. The DHCP server responds with:

  • the computer IP address,
  • TFTP server address (called "next-server"),
  • PXE boot filename to load,
  • NetBoot root-path values.

3. The client sends a TFTP request to "next-server", asking to retrieve the PXE filename.

4. The TFTP server responds and sends filename to client.

5. Many things here:

  • The client executes filename, which is in PXE format.
  • The PXE menu will be display so the user can choose which kernel to load
  • Then PXE loads the kernel.
  • When the kernel executes, the root file system specified by root-path is mounted. If it's a diskless workstation then the client distribution will be mounted in NFS mode.



Diskless NetBoot

The following picture describes the same thing as before in the sequential order:

NetBoot overview step by step


Note that you have to prepare the image before being able to boot on it. ^^


Installation steps

1. First you need to setup a DHCP and DNS server.


2. Then you'll need to setup a TFTP server and setup some kernels for NetBoot


3. Setup a NFS server


4. Create a NFS image


5. Reference the NFS image into the TFTP server


6. Run the image ! ;)



References

The 1st overview picture comes from the FreeBSD forum: http://www.nl.freebsd.org/doc/handbook/network-diskless.html