PXE initrd

Piotr Kirklewski — Fri, 19 Nov 2010 04:39:01 GMT

Hi there
So how do I build a boot-able initrd image so I can use it with my PXE in order to install Cent-OS 5.5 64-bit ?
Regards
Peter

Re: PXE initrd

Matti_Kurkela — Fri, 19 Nov 2010 08:57:33 GMT

On a RHEL 5.5 installation DVD, there is a directory "images/pxeboot". It contains two files for PXE boot setup: initrd.img and vmlinuz.

CentOS is supposed to be be the same as RHEL minus RedHat copyrighted graphics, so see if the CentOS installation DVD has these files too.

MK

Re: PXE initrd

Jimmy Vance — Sun, 21 Nov 2010 00:10:58 GMT

The method Matti suggested will work fine. Here is another option. I use the SmartStart Scripting Toolkit for Linux (SSSTK) as the base initrd for my PXE setup. This allows me to use the utilities in the toolkit to provision ProLiant hardware before I install the OS. I've added many more options to the boot menu for example

PXE boot:
To a bash prompt - for general debugging
Automatic hardware config and OS install
Autmatic Firmware update
Manual Firmware update
Manual install CentOS
Manual install RHEL
Manual install SLES
Manual install Solaris x86
Manual install Windows 7
Manual install Server 2008
Manual install Server 2008 R2

The method uses a combination of PXE, NFS, and HTTP (Samba for Windows CIFS mounts) to access the files needed

The automatic hardware config and various OS install is done with a collection of bash scripts that are now included as example files that ship with the SSSTK.

The lastest version of the toolkit can be downloaded from http://www.hp.com/servers/sstoolkit Click on the download link.

The Windows installation pieces I recently created using bits grabbed from the SmartStart and Easy-Setup CD's and are not included in the above referenced examples.

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