PXE Boot

Nodegrid supports PXE boot (Pre-Boot Execution Environment). PXE is part of the UEFI (Unified Extensible Firmware Interface) used to boot a software image retrieved at boot time from a network server. Data centers prefer this method for OS booting, installation, and deployment.

By default, PXE boot is enabled in Nodegrid. It can be disabled on WebUI (Security :: Services) or CLI (/settings/services scope). The example shows how to configure the DHCP/PXE server in Linux (Ubuntu) with installed Apache web server, tftpd-hpa service and Nodegrid 5.8.x.

1. Download Nodegrid network boot files (tarball) - Contact Support to obtain the file
2. Copy Nodegrid network boot tar.gz (tarball) file to the DHCP server
3. Unzip the tar file (creates two directories: nodegrid 5.8.xx and boot).
   Alternatively, create the directory and put tar file in that directory. Then unzip the tarball file (i.e., cd /var/lib/tftpboot/PXE directory).
   Example:

   root@ubuntu-srv1:~# cd /var/lib/tftpboot/
   root@ubuntu-srv1:/var/lib/tftpboot# ls -l
   drwxrwxr-x 2 root  root       4096 Apr 24 03:20 nodegrid-5.8.xx
   root@ubuntu-srv1:/var/lib/tftpboot# ls -l nodegrid-5.8.xx
   total 558468
   -rw-r--r-- 1 root root  22270823 Apr 24 03:19 initrd
   -rw-rw-r-- 1 root root 544343672 Apr 24 03:19 rootfs.img.gz
   -rw-rw-r-- 1 root root         7 Apr 24 03:19 version
   -rw-r--r-- 1 root root   5242832 Apr 24 03:19 vmlinuz
         root@ubuntu-srv1:/var/lib/tftpboot#
   

4. (optional) To format the Hard Drive, create a file named "reformat" inside the nodegrid directory
   Example:

   touch nodegrid-5.8.xx/reformat

   • Open dhcpd.conf and add these lines in the “host definition” section. The hardware ethernet value must match the Nodegrid device MAC address. The fixed-address is the Nodegrid device IP address.

Legacy Mode Example

host PXEboot_NSC {
     hardware ethernet e4:1a:2c:56:02:9e;
     fixed-address 192.168.22.61;
     option tftp-server-name "192.168.22.201";
     next-server 192.168.22.201;
     option bootfile-name "PXE/boot/grub/i386-pc/core.0";
     option domain-name "zpesystems.com";
     option domain-name-servers 192.168.22.205, 75.75.75.75, 75.75.76.76;
     option routers 192.168.22.202;
}

UEFI Mode Example:

host PXEboot_NSC {
     hardware ethernet e4:1a:2c:56:02:9e;
     fixed-address 192.168.22.61;
     option tftp-server-name "192.168.22.201";
     next-server 192.168.22.201;
     option bootfile-name "PXE/boot/grub/x86_64-efi/core.efi";
     option domain-name "zpesystems.com";
     option domain-name-servers 192.168.22.205, 75.75.75.75, 75.75.76.76;
     option routers 192.168.22.202;

1. On Web server (i.e., Apache), cd /var/www and create a soft link to the file for the network boot:
   ln -sand filename to link to the directory.

   root@ubuntu-srv1:/var/www# pwd
   root@ubuntu-srv1:/var/www#
   root@ubuntu-srv1:/var/www# ln -sf /var/lib/tftpboot/PXE/nodegrid-5.8.xx/ nodegrid-5.8.xx
   

2. Restart the DHCP server.

   sudo service isc-dhcp-server restart

3. Restart tftpd-hpa process.
4. Start the Nodegrid device. This installs the Nodegrid netboot image on the device.