Linux Documentation Sucks

Every time I try to lookup how to do something in Linux, I get a deluge of out of date, incomplete, and just plain wrong documentation. This is the PXE/Kickstart guide I wish I would have read before I wasted 3 days. Thanks for nothing, RedHat documentation team. Outline of the steps * Obtain installation media * Create Kickstart config file * Setup NFS server * Obtain PXE bootloader * Create PXE config file * Setup TFTP server * Setup DHCP server

Installation Media I was installing CentOS 5.5/x86_64 during this process, so I downloaded the two DVD images via torrent onto my NFS server. My BitTorrent client created the directory CentOS-5.5-x86_64-bin-DVD with the files: CentOS-5.5-x86_64-bin-DVD-1of2.iso md5sum.txt sha256sum.txt sha1sum.txt

CentOS-5.5-x86_64-bin-DVD-2of2.iso md5sum.txt.asc sha1sum.txt.asc sha256sum.txt.asc I moved this directory to /share/images to make it available via NFS. Next I mounted the first ISO file as a loop image and copied the initrd and kernel to my DHCP server: $ sudo mount /share/images/CentOS-5.5-x86_64-bin-DVD/CentOS-5.5-x86_64bin-DVD-1of2.iso /mnt/dvd/ -t iso9660 -o loop $ scp /mnt/dvd/images/pxeboot/*i* root@dhcp-server:/tftpboot

Kickstart File I created the directory /share/kickstart for Kickstart config files on my NFS server. I created the Kickstart file (test64-ks) using a previous CentOS install as a basis, and editing it based on snippets I found scattered around the 'Web. # Kickstart file automatically generated by anaconda. # Modified substantially by chort

install nfs --server 10.25.0.129 --dir /share/images/CentOS-5.5-x86_64-bin-DVD/ #url --url http://mirror.centos.org/centos/5.4/os/x86_64 lang en_US.UTF-8 keyboard us

# don't define more NICs than you have, the install will bomb if you do network --device eth0 --onboot yes --bootproto static --ip 10.25.42.139 --netmask 255.255.0.0 --gateway 10.25.0.1 --nameserver 10.25.0.5 #network --device eth1 --onboot no --bootproto dhcp #network --device eth2 --onboot no --bootproto dhcp #network --device eth3 --onboot no --bootproto dhcp # grab the hash from an account in /etc/shadow that has the password you want to use rootpw --iscrypted $1$fi0JeZ1p$Il0CxFxe0jqpNnkrOqC.0. firewall --enabled --port=22:tcp authconfig --enableshadow --enablemd5 selinux --disabled timezone --utc America/Los_Angeles

bootloader --location=mbr --driveorder=sda # The following is the partition information you requested # Note that any partitions you deleted are not expressed # here so unless you clear all partitions first, this is # not guaranteed to work clearpart --all --drives=sda # 100MB /boot partition part /boot --fstype ext3 --size=100 --ondisk=sda # everything else goes to LVM part pv.4 --size=0 --grow --ondisk=sda volgroup VolGroup00 --pesize=32768 pv.4 # 2GB swap fs logvol swap --fstype swap --name=LogVol01 --vgname=VolGroup00 --size=2048 # 5GB / fs logvol / --fstype ext3 --name=LogVol00 --vgname=VolGroup00 --size=5120 # 10GB + remaining space for /opt fs logvol /opt --fstype ext3 --name=LogVol02 --vgname=VolGroup00 --size=10240 --grow

%packages @base @core @dialup @editors @text-internet keyutils

trousers fipscheck device-mapper-multipath bind bind-chroot bind-devel caching-nameserver compat-libstdc++-33 compat-glibc gdb ltrace ntp OpenIPMI-tools screen sendmail-cf strace sysstat -bluez-utils

%post /usr/bin/yum -y update >> /root/post_install.log 2>&1 /sbin/chkconfig --del bluetooth /sbin/chkconfig --del cups /sbin/chkconfig ntpd on /sbin/chkconfig named on

NFS Server Make sure NFS is enabled: $ for i in nfs nfslock portmap ; do sudo chkconfig --list $i ; done

Edit /etc/exports to enable access to the share for the machines that will PXE boot: # sample /etc/exports file #/ #/projects #/usr #/home/joe #/pub #/pub /share master(rw) trusty(rw,no_root_squash) proj*.local.domain(rw) *.local.domain(ro) @trusted(rw) pc001(rw,all_squash,anonuid=150,anongid=100) (ro,insecure,all_squash) (ro,insecure,all_squash) *.bkeefer.se.example.com(ro,no_root_squash)

I restart the nfs service after I edit /etc/exports $ sudo service nfs restart

Bootloader Next, on the DHCP server, I grabbed the PXE bootloader from the syslinux package. You should be able to install this through yum: $ sudo yum install syslinux

Copy the bootloader to the TFTP server directory: $ sudo cp /usr/lib/syslinux/pxelinux.0 /tftpboot

Create the pxelinux.cfg directory in /tftpboot and edit the default file: # You can have multiple kernels, if so name each with it's version # This configuration only has one possible kernel so I didn't rename it default linux label linux kernel vmlinuz append ksdevice=eth0 load_ramdisk=1 initrd=initrd.img network ks=nfs:10.25.0.129:/share/kickstart/test64-ks

TFTP Server Configure the TFTP server by editing /etc/xinetd.conf/tftp file: # default: off # description: The tftp server serves files using the trivial file transfer \ # # # protocol. The tftp protocol is often used to boot diskless \ workstations, download configuration files to network-aware printers, \ and to start the installation process for some operating systems.

service tftp { socket_type protocol wait user server server_args disable = dgram = udp = yes = root = /usr/sbin/in.tftpd = -vvs /tftpboot = no

per_source cps flags }

= 11 = 100 2 = IPv4

I changed "disable = yes" -> "disable = no" and "server_args = -s /tftpboot" -> "server_args = -vvs /tftpboot". xinetd probably doesn't need to be restarted, but I did any way: $ sudo service xinetd restart

I had only a single machine to boot, so I used a fixed IP base on the Ethernet address. Make sure you edit /var/lib/dhcp.lease* to erase references to the MAC and restart dhcpd. Here's the /etc/dhcpd.conf shared-network SE-NET {

subnet 10.25.42.0 netmask 255.255.255.0 { authoritative; allow booting; option routers option subnet-mask option domain-name option domain-name-servers option time-offset option ntp-servers host test64 { hardware ethernet 00:0c:29:b3:81:99; fixed-address 10.25.42.139; next-server 10.25.0.5; filename "pxelinux.0"; 10.25.0.1; 255.255.0.0; "bkeefer.se.example.com"; 10.25.0.5;

-28800; ntp.example.com;

} } }

I haven't had any luck with restarting dhcpd, so I do stop followed by start: $ sudo service dhcpd stop && sudo service dhcpd start Note that there are also forward and reverse DNS entries to match 10.25.42.139 to test64.bkeefer.se.example.com .

Final Step At this point you should be able to edit the BIOS for the machine you're booting to make sure the network card is in the boot order (as long as there's no OS installed, it should boot off the NIC no matter where it is in the order). Conclusion There, was that so hard? You'd think with the hundreds of millions of dollars RedHat takes in every year they could afford to test their documentation, and maybe even write start-to-finish guides instead of disconnected snippets.