PXE Boot : Diskless Clients2021/06/24

	Start a client computer which has no local drives from booting OS image from PXE server.
[1]	Configure basic settings for PXE Server, refer to here.
[2]	Install required packages on PXE server.

[root@dlp ~]#

dnf -y install dracut-network nfs-utils

[3]	Build a System for diskless clients on PXE server.

[root@dlp ~]#

mkdir -p /var/lib/tftpboot/centos-st8/root

[root@dlp ~]#

dnf group -y install "Server with GUI" --installroot=/var/lib/tftpboot/centos-st8/root/

# generate root password

[root@dlp ~]#

/usr/libexec/platform-python -c 'import crypt,getpass; \
print(crypt.crypt(getpass.getpass(), \
crypt.mksalt(crypt.METHOD_SHA512)))'

Password:
$6$EC1T.oKN5f3seb20$y1WlMQ7Ih424OwOn.....

[root@dlp ~]#

vi /var/lib/tftpboot/centos-st8/root/etc/shadow

# set root password generated above

root:

$6$EC1T.oKN5f3seb20$y1WlMQ7Ih424OwOn.....

:16372:0:99999:7:::

# set locale for clients system

[root@dlp ~]#

vi /var/lib/tftpboot/centos-st8/root/etc/locale.conf

LANG="en_US.UTF-8"

# set hostname for clients system

[root@dlp ~]#

vi /var/lib/tftpboot/centos-st8/root/etc/hostname

localhost.localdomain

[4]	Configure and Start NFS Server for diskless clients.

[root@dlp ~]#

vi /etc/exports

/var/lib/tftpboot/centos-st8/root 10.0.0.0/24(rw,no_root_squash)

[root@dlp ~]#

systemctl enable --now nfs-server

# if Firewalld is running, allow service

[root@dlp ~]#

firewall-cmd --add-service=nfs --permanent

[root@dlp ~]#

firewall-cmd --reload

[5]	Configure for BIOS based clients.

[root@dlp ~]#

wget -P /var/lib/tftpboot/centos-st8/ \
http://mirror.centos.org/centos/8-stream/BaseOS/x86_64/os/images/pxeboot/vmlinuz \
http://mirror.centos.org/centos/8-stream/BaseOS/x86_64/os/images/pxeboot/initrd.img

[root@dlp ~]#

vi /var/lib/tftpboot/pxelinux.cfg/default

# create new

default centos-st8

label centos-st8
    kernel centos-st8/vmlinuz
    append initrd=centos-st8/initrd.img root=nfs:10.0.0.30:/var/lib/tftpboot/centos-st8/root rw selinux=0

[6]	That's OK. Power on a computer which is enabled network booting on BIOS settings, then, System starts from shared OS image on PXE server.

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