Shulou(Shulou.com)06/02 Report--

Preface

What is PXE automatic deployment and installation?

PXE was originally part of Intel's cable management system, and Intel and Systemsoft released its specifications on September 20, 1999. This is achieved by using several network protocols such as Internet Protocol (IP), user Datagram Protocol (UDP), dynamic Host configuration Protocol (DHCP), Mini File transfer Protocol (TFTP) and the concept of globally unique identifier (GUID), universal network driver interface (UNDI), universal unique identification number (UUID), and by extending the preset API to the firmware of the client (the computer that passes the PXE self-test).

The term PXE client (client) refers to the role of the machine during PXE startup. A PXE client (client) can be a server, desktop, laptop, or other machine with PXE startup code.

Benefits and advantages of PXE

The PXE protocol generally combines DHCP and TFTP, although there are improvements in both. DHCP is used to find the appropriate boot server, and TFTP is used to download the initial bootstrap and additional files.

To start a PXE self-test session, the PXE firmware broadcasts a DHCPDISCOVER package with explicit PXE options (extension DHCPDISCOVER) to the 67/UDP port (DHCP server port). The PXE option is the qualification that PXE firmware has PXE capabilities, but will be ignored by general DHCP services. When firmware receives a DHCPOFFER packet from such a service, it configures itself by asking it to provide configuration information.

When the PXE redirect service (DHCP proxy) receives an extended DHCPDISCOVER packet, it answers by sending a DHCPDISCOVER packet with an explicit PXE option to the 68/UDP port (DHCP client port) of the PXE client. An extended DHCPDISCOVER package mainly contains:

An PXE discovers the control area to decide whether to use multicast, broadcast (network) or unicast to contact PXE to start the server. An address table that lists the available PXE startup server types. An entry that represents each PXE startup server type. A PXE startup menu with a prompt for the user to press which key to see the startup menu. A timeout value for how long it takes to start the first startup menu.

A DHCP proxy service may run a standard DHCP server on the same host. Although the two services cannot share the 67/UDP port, the DHCP proxy service runs on the 4011/UDP port, requiring the DHCPDISCOVER package from the client to become a DHCPREQUEST package. A standard DHCP service adds a special combination of PXE options to the DHCPOFFER packets it sends so that PXE clients know that a DHCP proxy service can be found on the 4011/UDP port of the same host.

PXE deployment practice

First, we need to configure an ordinary Linux system client as a pxe installation server, and create a new client as the PXE installation object.

Configure dual network cards for PXE servers

The configuration of dual network cards is complete!

After all the experimental environment has been deployed, start to configure the PXE server.

At this point, our PXE automatic deployment installation server has been configured and can be installed!

But at this stage, it can only be said that it is semi-automatic. If we want to install the machine automatically and do not need to do anything manually, we also need the help of kickstart unattended.

Check in terminal mode to see if this file has been saved successfully!

Start the configuration of menu!

After this step is completed, the kickstart will be deployed unattended, and then we will test whether it can be installed automatically without human control.

And automatically complete the installation!

PXE automatic deployment installation and kickstart unattended actual combat successfully completed!

Extension: red Hat 6 how to use pxe, and unattended installation, the steps are actually the same configuration, except that the startup menu default does not need to be written by itself, just need to copy the isolinux.cfg configuration file under the mounted image isolinux directory to / var/lib/tftpboot/pxelinux.cfg/default (installation menu)

In addition, you also need to copy the vesamenu.c32 (graphical installation menu) under the isolinux under the mount image to / var/lib/tftpboot.

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