Earlier we have covered how to setup PXE server on CentOS. This post will guide you how to setup PXE server on Ubuntu,
Required Packages
Syslinux
DHCP Server
TFTP Server
Installing required packages
apt-get -y install tftpd-hpa syslinux
Configuring TFTP Server
/etc/init.d/openbsd-inetd stop update-rc.d -f openbsd-inetd remove sed -i s/no/yes/ /etc/default/tftpd-hpa /etc/init.d/tftpd-hpa start
Configuring DHCP Server
Add this to you existing or new /etc/dhcp3/dhcpd.conf
Note: xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx is the IP address of your PXE server
For installing dhcp server on ubuntu you can check my previous post
allow booting; allow bootp; next-server xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx; filename "/pxelinux.0";
/etc/init.d/dhcp3-server restart
Copy needed files from syslinux to the tftpboot directory
cp /usr/lib/syslinux/pxelinux.0 /var/lib/tftpboot cp /usr/lib/syslinux/pxelinux.0 /var/lib/tftpboot cp /usr/lib/syslinux/menu.c32 /var/lib/tftpboot cp /usr/lib/syslinux/memdisk /var/lib/tftpboot cp /usr/lib/syslinux/mboot.c32 /var/lib/tftpboot cp /usr/lib/syslinux/chain.c32 /var/lib/tftpboot
Now we are using our PXE server to install CentOS 5.4 on client machine. So create a base directory for images and insert CentOS 5.4 dvd.
mkdir -p /var/lib/tftpboot/images/centos/i386/5.4 cp /tmp/dvd-centos-54/images/pxeboot/vmlinuz /var/lib/tftpboot/images/centos/i386/5.4/ cp /tmp/dvd-centos-54/images/pxeboot/initrd.img /var/lib/tftpboot/images/centos/i386/5.4/
Create the directory for your PXE menus
mkdir /var/lib/tftpboot/pxelinux.cfg
My sample config file
vi /var/lib/tftpboot/pxelinux.cfg/default
default menu.c32 prompt 0 timeout 50 ONTIMEOUT localboot MENU TITLE PXE Menu LABEL localboot MENU LABEL Boot From Hard Disk LOCALBOOT 0 LABEL CentoS 5.4 i386 Installer MENU LABEL CentOS 5.4 i386 Installer KERNEL images/centos/i386/5.4/vmlinuz append vga=normal initrd=images/centos/i386/5.4/initrd.img ramdisk_size=32768
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My name is Vidyadhar Sarmalkar & I work as a consultant and have done RHCE & CCNA. 
