TFTP-PXE-Boot-Server

Important

PR#5 dropped support for 32-bit, CentOS, Fedora and loading files via TFTP

This project contains basic files and folder setup needed for a TFTP PXELINUX server.

Network (PXE) boot supports the following live CD or installation distros for BIOS and UEFI (without Secure Boot yet) devices.

• CloneZilla Live 64-bit with additional non-free firmware support
• GParted Live 64-bit
• Ubuntu 16.04 (Xenial)

Usage

1. Set up TFTP server
   • You could use http://ww2.unime.it/flr/tftpserver/ for MacOS
   • Follow these and these instructions on Synology NAS
2. Set up HTTP server pointing to http/ directory
   • Debug HTTP server as per instructions below
3. Check out this project code on TFTP server git clone --depth 1 git@github.com:igorpupkinable/TFTP-PXE-Boot-Server.git .
4. Ensure TFTP server root points to tftp/ project directory
   • Debug TFTP server as per instructions below
5. Configure your DHCP to use TFTP server
   • Use DHCP option 66 "next-server" if located on a different IP to DHCP server
   • DHCP should offer the LPXELINUX.0 as the boot filename (DHCP option 67)
   • Follow these instructions on Synology router
6. Edit tftp/*/pxelinux.cfg/default files to add your PXE boot options
7. Download and configure each bootstrap program you require as per instructions. Bootstraps are not committed to this repository due to their size.
   • Alpine Linux (TODO)
   • CloneZilla Live 64-bit
   • GParted Live 64-bit
   • Ubuntu Desktop (TODO)
   • Ubuntu Minimal (TODO)
   • Ubuntu Server (TODO)

Debug TFTP server

tftp is the user interface to the Internet TFTP (Trivial File Transfer Protocol), which allows users to transfer files to and from a remote machine. The remote host may be specified on the command line, in which case tftp uses host as the default host for future transfers.

1. Install TFTP client

user:~$ sudo apt update
user:~$ sudo apt install tftp

2. Test connection and file download

user:~$ tftp 192.168.0.123
tftp> verbose
Verbose mode on.
tftp> get bios/lpxelinux.0
getting from 192.168.0.123:bios/lpxelinux.0 to lpxelinux.0 [netascii]
Received 91044 bytes in 0.2 seconds [3641760 bits/sec]
tftp> quit

Debug HTTP server

1. Download a file placed in images/ directory

user:~$ wget http://192.168.0.123/images/example.ext

Alpine Linux instructions

TODO

CloneZilla Live 64-bit instructions

1. Download amd64 ISO or ZIP alternative stable release from here
2. Create image version directory in http/ directory, i.e. http/images/CloneZilla/20230212-kinetic
3. Extract vmlinuz, initrd.img and filesystem.squashfs files from live/ directory of the downloaded archive
4. Image version directory should look like this

• http/images/CloneZilla/20230212-kinetic/filesystem.squashfs
• http/images/CloneZilla/20230212-kinetic/initrd.img
• http/images/CloneZilla/20230212-kinetic/vmlinuz

5. Make sure CloneZilla Live x64 KERNEL, APPEND initrd and APPEND fetch paths and TFTP/HTTP server IP match in tftp/*/pxelinux.cfg/default configuration file for BIOS and UEFI, e.g.

LINUX http://192.168.0.123/images/CloneZilla/20230212-kinetic/vmlinuz APPEND initrd=http://192.168.0.123/images/CloneZilla/20230212-kinetic/initrd.img ... fetch=http://192.168.0.123/images/CloneZilla/20230212-kinetic/filesystem.squashfs

More information can be found here

GParted Live 64-bit instructions

1. Download amd64 ISO or ZIP stable release from here
2. Create image version directory in http/ directory, i.e. http/images/GParted/1.5.0-1-amd64
3. Extract vmlinuz, initrd.img and filesystem.squashfs files from live/ directory of the downloaded archive
4. Image version directory should look like this

• http/images/GParted/1.5.0-1-amd64/filesystem.squashfs
• http/images/GParted/1.5.0-1-amd64/initrd.img
• http/images/GParted/1.5.0-1-amd64/vmlinuz

5. Make sure GParted Live x64 KERNEL, APPEND initrd and APPEND fetch paths and TFTP/HTTP server IP match in tftp/*/pxelinux.cfg/default configuration file, for BIOS and UEFI, e.g.

LINUX http://192.168.0.123/images/GParted/1.5.0-1-amd64/vmlinuz APPEND initrd=http://192.168.0.123/images/GParted/1.5.0-1-amd64/initrd.img ... fetch=http://192.168.0.123/images/GParted/1.5.0-1-amd64/filesystem.squashfs

More information can be found here

Ubuntu Desktop instructions

TODO

Ubuntu Minimal instructions

TODO

Ubuntu Server instructions

TODO

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Further documentation

The Syslinux Project https://www.syslinux.org/

PXELINUX is a Syslinux derivative for booting from a network server https://wiki.syslinux.org/wiki/index.php?title=PXELINUX

• Configuration introduction can be found here
• Advanced menu system configuration documentation can be found here

How to upgrade Syslinux

1. Clone repository git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/paulmaunders/TFTP-PXE-Boot-Server .
2. Download new version from https://wiki.syslinux.org/wiki/index.php?title=Download wget https://mirrors.edge.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/boot/syslinux/Testing/6.04/syslinux-6.04-pre1.zip
3. Extract modules and dependencies according to https://wiki.syslinux.org/wiki/index.php?title=Library_modules

• bios/com32/chain/chain.c32
• bios/com32/elflink/ldlinux/ldlinux.c32
• bios/com32/lib/libcom32.c32
• bios/com32/libutil/libutil.c32
• bios/com32/menu/menu.c32
• bios/core/lpxelinux.0

4. DO NOT use Syslinux versions 5.10 to 6.02 due to known bug which crashes VM

• https://www.virtualbox.org/ticket/13048
• https://bugzilla.syslinux.org/show_bug.cgi?id=54

dnsmasq DHCP server

https://dnsmasq.org/docs/dnsmasq-man.html

Run dnsmasq --help dhcp to see available DHCP options. List of standard DHCP options is here.

Testing with Oracle VirtualBox

1. Oracle VirtualBox VM requires at least 1024MB of base memory for successful testing.
2. Oracle VirtualBox VM requires Intel PRO/1000 MT Desktop bridged network adapter for successful BIOS PXE testing.
3. Oracle VirtualBox VM requires virtio-net bridged network adapter for successful UEFI PXE testing.
4. Use Microsoft Hyper-V Generation 2 VM for successful UEFI PXE testing.