I'm trying to find out if PXE booting can be done from anything other than an ISO.

On my server side, I'd like to have a partition containing all the data the remote system would need to boot from. The hope is to avoid needing to wrap boot images up into ISO files. I wondered if I could just point tftp to a partition instead of an ISO file, but I can't find any documentation to support this.

Thank you.

Long ago, I wished for a simple How-To to do this. I didn't find one, so I created one!

http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...-jessie-37169/

http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...-jessie-37127/

Okay, so it's two different How-To's.

The second one just uses GRUB to boot, meaning the server setup is much simpler - just an nfs share. But you need to mess with GRUB on the client side to actually get it to boot. Still, this How-To describes in specific detail how to create the nfs share. It doesn't need to be a separate partition, but it can be. It just needs to be a file tree. Note that you don't necessarily need to set up a separate nfs export share for each client computer. You can have a big share which includes multiple full OS file trees underneath it.

The first How-To gets to the meat of what you want. It describes the PXE setup and specifically what to put in /srv/tftp/pxelinux.cfg/default to make it work. It's something like this:
The How-To also describes how to build/copy the required initrd.pxe and vmlinuz.pxe (they don't need to be named that).

It is not the most common way to boot pxe from an iso. There are hundreds of web how to's on this subject and I've never seen two the same.

Generally I like to tell folks to boot to a knoppix disc and see how knoppix terminal server sets up nfs to push out the files.

You have choices like gpxe/ipxe to where you can serve from a ftp or http and other resources.

There is no point that I can see in booting an ISO via PXE. That must have origins in some specific use case which has been propagated in unintended ways.

In addition to IsaacKuo's Debian centric tutorials linked above, I would suggest reading Eric Hameleer's excellent PXE guide for Slackware.

Try to not focus on it being a Slackware document, the ideas and configuration are fairly generic. Just learn how the DHCP and TFTP servers are related to the network and HTTP/FTP/NFS file transfer schemes to form a "PXE server".

Did you intend to link to a different web page? The one you linked to describes how to run the Slackware installer over PXE. This is meant to allow the PXE boot client to run the installer, doing a traditional local install onto a local hard drive. This sort of thing can be useful when there is no working CD-ROM drive or USB boot option, and the local hard drive is something weird that you can't just move to another computer to do the install.

I used to have the Debian installer configured as a PXE boot option, but the use cases appropriate for it became so rare that I stopped bothering. Boot from USB is so ubiquitous.

That is the page I intended. Although its main purpose is running the Slackware installer via PXE, it is an excellent walkthrough for booting almost anything over PXE. That is, forgetting the Slackware-specific files and use as noted, it discusses setting up each component of a working PXE server very clearly.

Starting from nothing but the corresponding document for Slackware 12.1 I originally set up and continue to manage my own local PXE servers, all booting not only different Slackware installers, but several live distros, FreeBSD and Dragonfly installers, GParted utilities, memtest, and more... all the essentials are there in simplest form, all you have to do is apply it to your own case.

Put another way, while it a Slackware How-To, it is also a complete and easy to use generic PXE guide with Slackware installer as an example. It is all about configuring the PXE server.

It doesn't sound like you have set up any diskless PXE boot systems, which is what the original poster was asking about (the OS drive is on a server's partition, not a local disk or local unionfs ramdisk).

Whether you realize it or not, this requires significantly different setup than just pointing something (what, specifically?) at a partition of files copied from a local install. You've got to do different things to create the initrd, you've got to do different things in /etc/fstab, and there are a bunch of annoying things that can go wrong with network-manager and ethernet device setup.

I suspect you would have realized this if you had actually set up a non-live diskless PXE boot system.

There are a lot of things you need to do, and my how-tos describe in specific detail a working example of how to do them all.

IsaacKuo - This might work....I'll have to tinker with it.

astrogeek - I've only ever seen pxebooting done via ISO file, and the reason for doing so across the board has almost always been convenience.

jefro - Maybe it's not the most common? It's the only way I've ever seen it done. Your mileage may vary. I'll check out the knoppix disc....been a while since I heard that name.

Thanks folks, I appreciate it.

I only suggest Knoppix as a learning tool. When you boot to knoppix the server is not working. No nfs mount, no files copied, no tftp server and such working. All that is started when you start the Knoppix Terminal Server. It sets that all up.

Look into LTSP. Simplifies diskless clients big time. I use it at home to pxe boot media centers around my house.