Kickstart and PXE Server

 Configuration of Kickstart and PXE Server in RHEL6

 Server IP settings

IPADDR 192.168.0.70

SUBNET 255.255.255.0

NM_CONTROLLED=no

ONBOOT= yes

BOOTPRO=none

DNS1=192.168.0.1

Kickstart file is used to install the OS at different client machine without providing the entries which are asked during the installation of OS.Kickstart file should be created in the location os is copied and can be accessed over the network.

 Install the kickstart package.

Yum install system-config-kickstart

 Install the kickstart package.

 Run the kickstart utility.

system-config-kickstart

In the second last option you can remove text mode installation option and opt For a graphical one. 

Select the http installation method 

Use the defaults.

 In the disk label option choose the first option (Initialize the disk label).

The partitions that I have created are like this.

                                                     

 Mount Point                           type               size 

 /boot                                 ext4               500

   Swap                                swap            2048

        /                                   ext4              18000

Make sure that SELinux option is disabled and Security level is set to Disable firewall.

Save the ks.cfg file to the filesystem.

PXE Server Configuration

 # Install all the required packages through yum

[root@server~]#Yum install syslinux xinetd* tftp-server dhcp httpd  -y

[root@server~]#mkdir /var/lib/tftpboot/pxelinux.cfg

[root@server~]#cp  /usr/share/syslinux/pxelinux.0  /var/lib/tftpboot/

[root@server~]#vi /etc/xinetd.d/tftp

# Open the xinetd settings to enable tftp server.

# at line 14 set the parameter to no from yes.

Disable=no 

[root@server~]#service xinetd restart

 [root@server~]#chkconfig xinetd on

Add the following code to dhcp server in global section

 [root@server~]# vi /etc/dhcp/dhcpd.conf

 # Global Options

Allow booting;

Allow bootp;

authoritative;

# Subnet definition

subnet 192.168.0.0 netmask 255.255.255.0 {

# Parameters for the local subnet

option routers               192.168.0.1;

option subnet-mask           255.255.255.0;

option domain-name           “Raju.com”;

option domain-name-servers   192.168.0.1;

default-lease-time           21600;

max-lease-time               43200;

# Client IP range

range dynamic-bootp 192.168.0.100 192.168.0.200;

 }

 [root@server~]#service dhcpd restart

[root@server~]#Chkconfig dhcpd on

[root@server~]#mkdir –p /var/pxe/rhel6

[root@server~]#mkdir /var/lib/tftpboot/rhel6

Insert your RHEL 6 dvd and Mount dvd to /mnt

[root@server~]#mount  /dev/cdrom   /mnt

Check the contents to see if it is properly mounted /mnt

 ls –l

 copy all the contents to the /var/pxe/rhel6 directory.

[root@server~]#cp –ivr /mnt/*  /var/pxe/rhel6

After the file copy operation unmount and eject the dvd.

[root@server~]#umount  /mnt

[root@server~]#eject

 copy the vmlinuz and initrd.img files to the tftpboot directory.

[root@server~]#cp  /var/pxe/rhel6/images/pxeboot/vmlinuz   /var/lib/tftpboot/rhel6

[root@server~]#cp  /var/pxe/rhel6/images/pxeboot/initrd.img   /var/lib/tftpboot/rhel6

copy the menu file.

[root@server~]#cp /usr/share/syslinux/menu.c32  /var/lib/tftpboot/

[root@server~]#vi /var/lib/tftpboot/pxelinux.cfg/default

timeout 20

default menu.c32

 #Prepare the boot menu.

menu title  ******BOOT MENU******

label 1

  menu label ^ 1) RHEL6

  kernel rhel6/vmlinuz

  append initrd=rhel6/initrd.img  ks=http://192.168.0.70/ks/ks.cfg  ksdevice=eth0

[root@server~]#chkconfig httpd on

 [root@server~]#service httpd restart

 create new entry

[root@server~]# vi  /etc/httpd/conf.d/pxeboot.conf

Alias /rhel6 /var/pxe/rhel6

   Options Indexes FollowSymLinks

   Order Deny,Allow

   Deny from all

   Allow from 127.0.0.1  192.168.0.0/24

# Ip address you allow

[root@server~]#chkconfig httpd on

 [root@server~]#service httpd restart

[root@server~]#mkdir /var/www/html/ks

 [root@server~]#cp /ks.cfg   /var/www/html/ks/ks.cfg

[root@server~]#chmod 644 /var/www/html/ks/ks.cfg

[root@server~]#chkconfig httpd on

 [root@server~]#service httpd restart

The pxe server is ready.

Plug a computer into the network and boot it through LAN using pxe.