4.1. Preparing Environment¶

4.1.1. Installing PXE Components¶

You will need these components to set up a PXE environment:

• TFTP server. This is a machine that allows your servers to boot and install Virtuozzo Infrastructure Platform over the network. Any machine that can run Linux and is accessble over network can be a TFTP server.

• DHCP server. This is a standard DHCP machine serving TCP/IP settings to computers on your network.

• HTTP server. This is a machine serving Virtuozzo Infrastructure Platform installation files over network.

  Note

  You can also share Virtuozzo Infrastructure Platform distribution over network via FTP (e.g., with vsftpd) or NFS.

The easiest way is to set up all of these on the same physical machine:

# yum install tftp-server syslinux httpd dhcp

You can also use servers that already exist in your infrastructure. For example, skip httpd and dhcp if you already have the HTTP and DHCP servers.

4.1.2. Configuring TFTP Server¶

This section describes how to configure the TFTP server for BIOS-based systems. For information on how to configure it for installing Virtuozzo Infrastructure Platform on EFI-based systems, see the Red Hat Enterprise Linux Installation Guide.

Do the following:

1. On the server, open the /etc/xinetd.d/tftp file, and edit it as follows:

   service tftp
   {
   disable         = no
   socket_type     = dgram
   protocol        = udp
   wait            = yes
   user            = root
   server          = /usr/sbin/in.tftpd
   server_args     = -v -s /tftpboot
   per_source      = 11
   cps             = 100 2
   flags           = IPv4
   }
   

   Once you are done, save the file.

2. Create the /tftpboot directory and copy the following files to it:

   • vmlinuz,
   • initrd.img,
   • menu.c32,
   • pxelinux.0.

   These files are necessary to start installation. You can find the first two in the /images/pxeboot directory of the Virtuozzo Infrastructure Platform distribution. The last two files are located in the syslinux directory (usually /usr/share/syslinux or /usr/lib/syslinux).

3. Create the /tftpboot/pxelinux.cfg directory and make the default file in it.

   # mkdir /tftpboot/pxelinux.cfg
   # touch /tftpboot/pxelinux.cfg/default
   

4. Add the following lines to default:

   default menu.c32
   prompt 0
   timeout 100
   ontimeout ASTOR
   menu title Boot Menu
   label ASTOR
           menu label Install Virtuozzo Infrastructure Platform
           kernel vmlinuz
           append initrd=initrd.img ip=dhcp
   

   Note

   For detailed information on parameters you can specify in this file, see the documentation for syslinux.

5. Restart the xinetd service:

   # /etc/init.d/xinetd restart
   

6. If necessary, configure firewall to allow access to the TFTP server (on port 69 by default).

   Note

   When running the TFTP server, you might get the “Permission denied” error. In this case, you may try to fix the problem by running the following command: # restorecon -Rv /tftboot/.

4.1.3. Setting Up DHCP Server¶

To set up a DHCP server for installing Virtuozzo Infrastructure Platform over network, add the following strings to the dhcpd.conf file, which is usually located in the /etc or /etc/dhcp directory:

next-server <PXE_server_IP_address>;
filename "/pxelinux.0";

4.1.4. Setting Up HTTP Server¶

Now that you have set up the TFTP and DHCP servers, you need to make the Virtuozzo Infrastructure Platform distribution files available for installation over the network. To do this:

1. Set up an HTTP server. You can also use an existing HTTP server, if you have one.

2. Copy the contents of your Virtuozzo Infrastructure Platform installation DVD to some directory on the HTTP server (e.g., /var/www/html/astor).

3. On the PXE server, open the /tftpboot/pxelinux.cfg/default file for editing, and specify the path to the Virtuozzo Infrastructure Platform installation files on the HTTP server.

   Note

   For EFI-based systems, the file you need to edit has the name of /tftpboot/pxelinux.cfg/efidefault or /tftpboot/pxelinux.cfg/<PXE_server_IP_address>.

   Assuming that you have the installation files in the /var/www/html/astor directory on the HTTP server with the IP address of 198.123.123.198 and the DocumentRoot directory is set to /var/www/html, you can add the following option to the append line of the default file to make the Virtuozzo Infrastructure Platform files accessible over HTTP:

   inst.repo=http://198.123.123.198/astor
   

   So your default file should look similar to the following:

   default menu.c32
   prompt 0
   timeout 100
   ontimeout ASTOR
   menu title Boot Menu
   label ASTOR
           menu label Install Virtuozzo Infrastructure Platform
           kernel vmlinuz
           append initrd=initrd.img ip=dhcp inst.repo=http://198.123.123.198/astor