TFTP server PXE configuration

Boot order

TFTP can manage different configurations, up to 1 per host!

This is how a ThinClient (= netBoot client) will retrieve its configuration:

As you can see you have 3 possibilities:

1. MAC @ filter. Configuration file name must be:

• Start with ARP type '01-'
• all in lower case hexadecimal
• dash '-' separators instead of ';'

for example a MAC @ 88:99:AA:BB:CC:DD would search for the filename 01-88-99-aa-bb-cc-dd.

2. IP @ filter. Configuration file name must be:

• host IP / network address in hexadecimal
• all in upper case

e.g. 192.0.2.91 -> C000025B

3. Default configuration

To learn more about all the available option, check out http://www.syslinux.org/wiki/index.php/PXELINUX

Create default configuration=

Create the default configuration file:

vim /tftpboot/pxelinux.cfg/default

Put the following:

# Debian 7.x
LABEL wheezy
    # Kernel
    KERNEL images/wheezy/vmlinuz 
    # Initrd + NFS root file
    APPEND initrd=images/wheezy/initrd.img root=/dev/nfs nfsroot=172.16.50.2:/nfs/wheezy


# Ubuntu 14.04
LABEL trusty
    # Kernel
    KERNEL images/trusty/vmlinuz 
    # Initrd + NFS root file
    APPEND initrd=images/trusty/initrd.img root=/dev/nfs nfsroot=172.16.50.2:/nfs/trusty


# Prompt user for selection
PROMPT 1
# No timeout
TIMEOUT 0

• Each LABEL is a specific configuration that will displayed on the NetBoot menu.
• PROMPT 0 = enable user prompt so you can choose the configuration
• TIMEOUT 0 = timeout (in seconds) before the default option is chosen. 0 == no timeout

Note that I used a reference to "trusty/", that's a folder I need to create later on.