PXE (Preboot eXecution Environment) Server allows unattended or automated OS installation over the Network.The main benefit of pxe is that we don’t need any bootable drive to boot OS(Operating system) and we do not need to to burn any ISO file into DVD or usb device.
Once the PXE server is configured we can install hundreds of System at the same time over the network.As it works on Client-Server architecture, to get the OS installation on clients, boot the clients via PXE option.
In this article i am going to setup PXE Server on CentOS 7.x and then will try to install OS on the client using pxe boot.
Below are details of my Setup :
- Server IP = 172.168.1.11
- Host name = pxe.example.com
- OS = CentOS 7.x
- SELinux = enabled
- Firewall = enabled
Step:1 Install required packages for PXE Setup
To install and Configure pxe server on centos 7.x we need the following packages “dhcp, tftp-server, ftp server(vsftpd), xinted”. Open the terminal execute beneath command :
Step:2 Configure DHCP Server for PXE
When we install dhcp package then a sample configuration file of dhcp server is created at “/usr/share/doc/dhcp*/dhcpd.conf.example“, though the configuration file of dhcp is at ‘/etc/dhcp/dhcpd.conf’.
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Copy the following lines into the file ‘/etc/dhcp/dhcpd.conf’, replace the ip subnet and other details as per your environment.
Step:3 Edit and Config tftp server (/etc/xinetd.d/tftp)
TFTP (Trivial File Transfer Protocol ) is used to transfer files from data server to its clients without any kind of authentication. In case of PXE server setup tftp is used for bootstrap loading. To config tftp server, edit its configuration file ‘ /etc/xinetd.d/tftp’, change the parameter ‘disable = yes‘ to ‘disable = no’ and leave the other parameters as it is.
All the network boot related files are to be placed in tftp root directory “/var/lib/tftpboot”
Run the following commands to copy required network boot files in ‘/var/lib/tftpboot/’
Step:4 Mount CentOS 7.x ISO file and copy its contents to local ftp server
In my case i have already downloaded CentOS 7.x iso file on my PXE Server. Run the beneath commands to mount iso file and then copy its contents in ftp server’s directory ‘/var/ftp/pub’
Copy Kernel file (vmlimz) and initrd file from mounted iso file to ‘/var/lib/tftpboot/networkboot/’
Now you can unmount the iso file using ‘umount’ command
Step:5 Create kickStart & PXE menu file.
Before creating kickstart file, let’s first create the root password in an encrypted string because we will using that encrypted password string in kickstart file.
System default kickstart file is placed under /root with name ‘anaconda-ks.cfg’. We will be creating a new kickstart under the folder /var/ftp/pub with the name ‘centos7.cfg’
Copy the following content into the new kickstart file. Please modify the kickstart file as per your needs.
Create a PXE menu file (/var/lib/tftpboot/pxelinux.cfg/default), copy the following contents into the pxe menu file.
Step:6 Start and enable xinetd, dhcp and vsftpd service.
Setup Centos 7 Network
Use the beneath commands to start and enable xinetd, dhcp and vsftpd.
In Case SELinux is enabled, then set the following selinux rule for ftp server.
Open the ports in the OS firewall using following firewall-cmd commands
Up to this point, PXE server installation and configuration is completed now.
Step:7 Boot the clients with pxe boot option.
As can see above that installation has been started with any human interaction. I hope you enjoy the installation and configuration of PXE server. Please share your feedback and comments.
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I have just installed centos 7 over an old windows PC. The centos 7 image was of minimal install as I had only 4 GB of pendrive available.
The wifi driver named wlp18s0b1 shows in the list if I do
ip link
but it's configuration file is not there in the /etc/sysconfig/network-scritps/ so I can't enable this interface using ifup
. ifup wlp18s0b1 says the following./sbin/ifup: configuration for wlp18s0b1 not found.
Usage: ifup <configuration>
the option
nmcli d
shows the wifi device wlp18s0b1 listed along with the ethernet card but when I do nmcli conn up
it says the following .Error: unknown connection wlp18s0b1
I am not sure how to bring this device up with
nmcli
and I don't have any extra network tools such as iw, iwconfig, ifconfig, dhclient
available as it was a minimal install. I only have access to wifi from here so can't use ethernet to install these as well.
Manish BatraManish Batra
1 Answer
The ifup command is the really old way of doing things and requires manual configuration. For wireless on CentOS 7 you almost certainly want to use NetworkManager directly either through GUI (Gnome/KDE settings or nm-applet and nm-connection-editor for lightweight WMs) or using nmcli.
The following example (as root) creates a connection configuration for your WiFi:
But next time you don't want to create it again but you rather want to work with connection profiles:
Once you are up and running on your WiFi network, you can learn more about the tools.
Centos 7 Network Config Files
Pavel ŠimerdaPavel Šimerda