Ubuntu 9.10 PXE Boot

Ubuntu 9.10 uses initrd.lz instead of initrd.gz, so PXE booting like you did in previous versions does not work.

This article assumes you’ve already downloaded the iso and have a working PXE boot server.

First, copy the contents of the iso to a directory we can work with


mkdir /tmp/910

mount -o loop ubuntu-9.10-desktop-i386.iso /tmp/910

cp -r /tmp/910 /tftpboot

Convert initrd.lz to initrd.gz


cd /tftpboot/910/casper

mkdir initrd

cp initrd.lz initrd

cd initrd

lzma -dc -S .lz initrd.lz | cpio -id

rm initrd.lz

find . | cpio --quiet --dereference -o -H newc | gzip -9 > initrd.gz

cp initrd.gz /tftpboot/910/casper

Now add the appropriate lines to pxelinux (Example: /tftpboot/pxelinux.cfg/default)


LABEL Ubuntu 9.10 i386 Unmodified Livecd
KERNEL 910/casper/vmlinuz
APPEND root=/dev/nfs boot=casper netboot=nfs nfsroot=192.168.0.1:/home/tftpboot/910 initrd=910/casper/initrd.gz quiet splash --

Make sure /tftpboot is shared via nfs; in /etc/exports add the following line


/tftpboot/910 192.168.0.0/24(rw,async,no_subtree_check)

Reload the NFS server

/etc/init.d/nfs-kernel-server reload

Possibly related posts: (automatically generated)

This entry was posted on Monday, November 16th, 2009 at 4:23 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

4 Responses to “Ubuntu 9.10 PXE Boot”

  1. Rossotron Says:
    November 28, 2009 at 8:45 am | Reply

    after i enter in:
    find . | cpio –quiet –dereference -o -H newc | gzip -9 > initrd.gz
    i get:
    cpio: You must specify one of -oipt options.
    Try `cpio –help’ or `cpio –usage’ for more information.

    • termina Says:
      November 28, 2009 at 7:37 pm | Reply

      WordPress messes up the “-” charachter; please type it in manually and don’t copy/paste. Those are two hypens by the way for “quiet” and “dereference”

  2. daGuz Says:
    January 21, 2010 at 8:25 pm | Reply

    Nice instructions except that I am trying something a little different [ and I can't get it to work yet].

    I want to install over http.

    I believe that I need the net-boot initrd. This does not seem to exist, do you know how to modify the existing to work over http?

    Regards

  3. Chris Says:
    January 22, 2010 at 9:33 pm | Reply

    Thanks a lot for this. I set it up and it’s working great. Now I’m working on a ubuntu boot CD that redirects the console to the serial port.

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