[syslinux] PXE Boot Solution

Miller, Shao Shao.Miller at yrdsb.edu.on.ca
Tue Jun 2 12:11:30 PDT 2009


You are correct in that this is somewhat off-topic.  For some lively
discussion, please feel free to join the #etherboot-win IRC channel on
the FreeNode network.

There are a lot of options for what you are after; too many to discuss
on this mailing-list, perhaps.  PXELINUX can certainly play a role in
whatever your end-process is, since PXELINUX is clever enough to allow
for some good choices very early in the boot process, and also to chain
to different boot/installation paths for different OSs.

If you're using Windows WIM images, I don't believe that multicast is an
option for you, but I've been wrong once before in my life (when I
thought I was wrong, but it turned out that I was right).

Microsoft Windows has technology called Remote Installation Services
(RIS), which might float your boat.  There's also booting Windows via
SAN, booting a Windows PE directly into RAM.  Then there're open source
software re-imaging solutions like CloneZilla and Fog (I think it's
called).

For PXE boot services, you could perhaps indulge in the Intel PXE
specification (another set of search terms is "Wired for Management").
You can use a Windows Server product with its DHCP service to PXE-boot
clients.  You could install Cygwin on a Windows box and use ISC DHCP
service.  You could have a Linux or xxxBSD box with ISC DHCP on it.  You
could install 3Com Boot Services (came with some Ghost suites) on a
Windows box.  So many options.

Sitting back while machines do automated work is ideal.  I would take a
look at your environment, gather its details, gather your base set of
needs, gather some "would-be-nice"s, do a little more research on
PXE-booting.  There are a _lot_ of HowTos on the Internet.  In fact,
when you decide on a set-up and get it working, write a HowTo for
others, yourself.  Heheh.

Good luck!

- Shao Miller
-----Original Message-----
From: syslinux-bounces at zytor.com [mailto:syslinux-bounces at zytor.com] On
Behalf Of Matthew Holevinski
Sent: Tuesday, June 02, 2009 14:48
To: syslinux at zytor.com
Subject: [syslinux] PXE Boot Solution

Once again I feel horrible for asking something I feel is completely
off topic for this group but everyone is so extremely helpful :(

In my organization, we basically use Windows PE disks, to do our
re-images, after some time and a lot of help from this group
I was able to get a thumb drive to successfully work as a Windows PE
bootloader, as well as some other utilities like wiping the
hard drive, and what not.

I have never considered using PXE booting as an option, granted I
assume it will only work just on my subnet or at least that's all
I'll really care to use it on, say for whenever someone brings me a
machine I need to wipe/re-image and set back up for them.

I've never setup a pxe server, but I was curious what all that would
entail, is it something i could setup on my windows box, or would
i need to setup a dedicated server for this purpose, and what all
could I do with it? Could I get it to recognize machines and wipe them
and re-image them for me without the need for a cd or thumbdrive?
Maybe an autodetection script to tell what make/model the machine is
so it knows what image to apply or a menu with an image selection to
apply to the machine? Like I said I'm not really all to sure what all
this would entail, but if someone has the time or initiative to maybe
respond and tell me what kind of setup they have for the technician
environment? We've unfortunately moved away from ghost images and
started using WIM's which are nice but i'm not really too big a fan
of them, our re-image process uses an HTA file that runs some sort of
like 14 page vb script to figure out what make model the machine is
and which of 4 or 5 vanilla images to apply and then another wim image
of drivers and then another with basic applications for 1 of the 4
environments.

Honestly, it would be great, if i could reboot say 20 machines, have
them all pxe boot from my machine and then sit back and watch my
machine
multicast out an image to all of them. Not really sure what I'm
talking about so be gentle.

Matthew Holevinski

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