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