Base Infrastructure for Automated Installations

Introduction to networked services

TFTP

The initial boot files for the installtion are provided across the network using TFTP, the Trivial File Transfer Protocol. This is effectively a cut down version of FTP and is widely used to support remote booting of machines as well as firmware upgrades to networked devices and similar.

/tftpboot/
|-- linux-install
|   `-- pxelinux.0
|-- pxeboot
|   |-- Solaris
|   |   |-- inetboot
|   |   `-- unix
|   |-- fedora
|   |   |-- initrd.img
|   |   `-- vmlinuz
|   `-- fedora64
|       |-- initrd.img
|       `-- vmlinuz
|-- pxelinux.0 -> linux-install/pxelinux.0
`-- pxelinux.cfg
    `-- default

While it is possible to create a Linux kernel file that will boot directly from the network, for example, for diskless client, a prefered method is to use the PXELINUX bootloader. This is a network optimised version of the lightweight SYSLINUX bootloader, originally designed for use with floppy disks. PXELINUX is used to create a boot menu for Linux clients, allowing options to be specified on the kernel boot command line and differing options for differing systems. PXELINUX configuration will be discussed later in this document.

The Solaris Operating System is shipped with a number of network bootable kernels for the various SPARC platforms available.

The data to be served by the TFTPd is located in /tftpboot. Operating System kernels and other required files are stored in automounted directories under the /tftpboot/pxeboot. The configuration files for PXELINUX are stored in /tftpboot/pxelinux.cfg, which will contain at least one file, named default containing the base configuration to be used.

DNS ->