source: trunk/README @ 67

Last change on this file since 67 was 33, checked in by bas, 21 years ago

README:

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1PXE-utilities
2-------------
3
4This is a release of the SARA package of utilities that we use to boot
5our nodes with PXE-enabled network cards. This was developed because we
6always want to use the PXE-enabled network card as our first boot device.
7With pxelinux, which is a derivative of syslinux, you can specify with a PXE
8configuration file how the node must boot. This configuration is placed in,
9e.g. '/tftpboot/pxelinux.cfg' directory.
10
11In our setup we have a default setup. The default setup is to boot from
12harddisk. When a node boots it fetches the default configuration file and the
13configuration file tells the node to boot from the harddisk. This setup
14is used for nodes that have already been installed by systemimager.
15
16At SARA we have developed the following  strategy how to install a fresh node.
17
18 1) The ip-address in our setup is known for the new node. So
19    we make a link in the '/tftpboot/pxelinux.cfg' directory to a
20    pxe config file which tells that it has to fetch the kernel en
21    root filesystem from our bootserver, eg:
22         0A000A02 ---> default.node_install (10.0.10.2)
23
24 2) The client starts and  uses the systemimager software to install
25    the node. The last line of installation script connects to a
26    daemon on the bootserver. This daemon will remove the PXE config file
27    for this node.
28
29 3) The node reboots and will use the default pxe config file which will
30    instruct the node to boot from harddisk.
31
32This release contains the following utilities:
33
34  pxeconfigd)
35     This is daemon that removes the pxe configuration file of a node.
36
37  pxeconfig)
38     With this program we can specify which pxe config file
39     a node or nodes must use. This utility will create the links
40     in '/tftpboot/pxelinux.cfg'
41
42  hexls)
43      Is a utility that diplays a directory, and, if in this directory
44      contains HEX files, it will convert them to IP-numbers.
45
46All these utilities are written in Python.
47
48I useful link about how to use Systemimager and the pxeconfig tools is:
49        http://www.fysik.dtu.dk/CAMP/Niflheim/systemimager.html
50
51Comments or Suggestions mail them to:
52Bas van der Vlies <basv@sara.nl>
53http://www.sara.nl for more info about SARA.
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