Raymond P. Burkholder - Things I Do - NetBoot

Debian mkfs.vfat

nospam@example.com (Raymond P. Burkholder) — Sat, 27 Feb 2021 17:52:25 +0000

From USB drive that contains a partition table, when installing firmware from a USB drive, there is the following note:

   - Workaround is to format the USB drive without a partition table,
     e.g. "mkfs.vfat -I /dev/sdc" (mkfs.vfat actually expects a
     partition table, -I override forces it to use the entire device)

Miscellaneous:

Mounting the root filesystem via NFS (nfsroot) - n order to use a diskless system, such as an X-terminal or printer server for example, it is necessary for the root filesystem to be present on a non-disk device. This may be an initramfs (see Documentation/filesystems/ ramfs-rootfs-initramfs.txt), a ramdisk (see Documentation/admin-guide/initrd.rst) or a filesystem mounted via NFS.

IPXE / PXEBoot Resources

nospam@example.com (Raymond P. Burkholder) — Mon, 18 Jan 2021 01:12:39 +0000

iPXE installation and EFI - building menus
4.1 Installing GRUB using grub-install - from the Grub manual
iPXE and Debian PreSeed
netboot.xyz is a way to PXE boot various operating system installers or utilities from one place within the BIOS without the need of having to go retrieve the media to run the tool. iPXE is used to provide a user friendly menu from within the BIOS that lets you easily choose the operating system you want along with any specific types of versions or bootable flags.
Index of boot.ipxe.org - up to date files for for use, note the iso is for legacy boot only
Debian UEFI - intended to describe UEFI for Debian purposes
Emedded scripts -
Debian Debootstrap - is a tool which will install a Debian base system into a subdirectory of another, already installed system - uses chroot to make and modify images
ipxe-scripts/boot/linux/debian.ipxe -
Booting CoreOS Container Linux via iPXE - many descriptive details
Automated Install with Debian Preseed - well documented preseed for a number of scenarios
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Some items to look into:

Linux Terminal Server Project (LTSP) -

Build MInimal IPXE / Grub USB to netinstall Debian on Dell Wyse 3040 via PXEBoot

nospam@example.com (Raymond P. Burkholder) — Sun, 17 Jan 2021 22:47:58 +0000

For the life of me, even though there is a menu option the Dell Wyse ThinClient 3040 to EFI PXEBoot, it pulls DHCP information, but never requests the boot files from the PXE server.

Probably the most detailed account of innards of the Wyse 3040 (N10D): Hardware.

Instead, as a work around, the goal is to keep a USB stick inserted into the 3040 to act as a PXE boot mechanism to install Debian on to the local drive.

After building a USB filesystem, Install IPXE files (as a side effect, it adds an ipxe menu item to grub.cfg):

$ apt install ipxe

Mount the partition:

$ mkdir mnt
$ sudo mount /dev/sda1 mnt

Create the EFI BOOT directory:

$ sudo mkdir -p mnt/EFI/BOOT/

Copy the IPXE EFI boot file natively, and as a required name:

$ sudo cp /usr/lib/ipxe/ipxe.efi mnt/EFI/BOOT/
$ sudo cp /usr/lib/ipxe/ipxe.efi mnt/EFI/BOOT/BOOTX64.EFI
$ ls mnt/EFI/BOOT/
BOOTX64.EFI  ipxe.efi

The rename to BOOTX64.EFI is required as this is hardcoded in the boot menus for the Wyse 3040. During the tail end of a Debian Expert install, there is a question of whether to install into a legacy EUFI boot directory. This performs that /EFI/BOOT/... build.

Install Grub (see --removable reference:

# sudo grub-install /dev/sda --removable  # may solve the above problem with BOOTX64.EFI, needs to be tried
$ sudo grub-install /dev/sda
Installing for x86_64-efi platform.
Installation finished. No error reported.

Unmount the drive for use:

$ sudo umount /dev/sda1

BIOS entries for the Dell Wyse 3040 to use with this iPXE USB (default password Fireport):

General -> Boot Sequence -> disable both IP6&IP4 Realtek GBE
System Configuration -> UEFI Network Stack -> uncheck Enable UEFI Network Stack
System Configuration -> Integrated Nic -> Enabled (no PXE)
System Configuration -> USB Configuration -> check Enable USB Boot Support
Secure Boot -> Secure Boot Enable -> Disabled
Power Management -> Wake on LAN -> LAN Only
Virtualization Support -> Virtualization -> Enable

iPXE Boot

nospam@example.com (Raymond P. Burkholder) — Sat, 25 Jan 2020 16:54:37 +0000

An extract from bug #949655 at bugs.debian.org:

I finally found on iPXE website[1] a link to detailed examples, including one[2] to boot pxelinux. It works perfectly with di-netboot-assistant:
#!ipxe
dhcp
set 210:string tftp://my_server/d-i/n-a/
chain ${210:string}pxelinux.0
For those who did not know (like me ), 210 is a standard DHCP option called "path prefix"[3].

[1]extensive ipxe menu example
[2]menu.ixpe file
[3]bootp dhcp parameters