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.
NOTE
PXE, DHCP and TFTP servers must be installed.
- Download Nodegrid network boot files (tarball) - Contact Support to obtain the file
- Copy Nodegrid network boot tar.gz (tarball) file to the DHCP server
- 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# - (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;
- 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 - Restart the DHCP server.
sudo service isc-dhcp-server restart - Restart tftpd-hpa process.
- Start the Nodegrid device. This installs the Nodegrid netboot image on the device.