My Linksys router now serves the LAN with netboot images, allowing the simple installation of Debian GNU/Linux.
I updated /etc/dnsmasq.conf on the router itself to read:
# gPXE sends a 175 option. dhcp-match=gpxe,175 # serve the "undionly.kpxe" file by default. dhcp-boot=net:#gpxe,undionly.kpxe # which will then pull the config via HTTP dhcp-boot=http://static.steve.org.uk/netboot/gpxe.cfg
Then placed /tftproot/undionly.kpxe in place on the router. This combination of files causes:
- The machine to netboot via undionly.kpxe (think of this like pxelinux.0.)
- The file gpxe.cfg to be fetched via HTTP
- Which in turn loads a simple menu.conf file, again via HTTP
- At this point the user can select the flavour of Debian installer to run.
I have only one problem - it seems that adding the expected entry to boot locally fails:
MENU TITLE Netboot LABEL Local.Disk bootlocal 0
Update: After a fresh sleep and more trial and error I discovered this works:
LABEL Local.Boot KERNEL local/chain.c32 APPEND -
It gives a temporary warning about invalid sector number - but actually does boot locally by default, on both my EEEPC and my desktop machine.
If you want to snarf my netboot environment you are welcome to mirror :
Why did I do this in the first place? I wanted to install Squeeze upon my EEEPC (now done.)
ObQuote: Nice Cross. How'd you get the blood off?
- Dead Like Me