Does anyone have any experience using iPXE to boot over their network?
http://ipxe.org/start

A synopsis of where I am... I have a NAS unit (qnap ts-220) and I really want to host bootable operating systems on it. I'll probably eventually put up a Linux distro to boot from, but for now i'm trying to boot windows installation media. Its pretty well documented on how to do this, or so it would seem anyway. http://ipxe.org/wimboot

I have my tftp server set up, and have it pointed at the undionly.kpxe file (under the chain loading section). My system pulls this file, and I enter iPXE, and am left with a command line. I can use all the commands, and as a demo I was able to boot their demo listed on the main page. (Its a command line Linux boot).

So I feel confident that I can use pxe to access my tftp server and pull ipxe down... I should be good to go on setting up wimboot. However I followed their instructions, and nothing works. I boot the "boot.ipxe" file and nothing happens. I checked my permissions, paths, etc.

I'm scratching my head. Can anyone help?

1/10/2014 8:39:11 PM

TFP doesn't work so well with ipxe and windows client booting, when the pxe server is *nix.

Use their recommended pattern of using an http server to deliver the boot.ipxe and associated files
http://ipxe.org/howto/winpe

You can probably get a mini apache service setup on the NAS, or nginx as a fallback. If you were using a windows pxe server, then you can follow this guide: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj648426.aspx

(note you just need a base Windows server 08/2012 install to do this)

1/10/2014 9:06:50 PM

Thanks noen. I actually dropped all the files into a web server... So my source files are all at http://192.168.1.10/Win7/boot.ipxe for example. It finds the ipxe file and I think loads it, but either something is screwed up in my ipxe file... Or i'm missing something to make it work.

I don't even know where to look honestly, because ipxe loaded this (http://boot.ipxe.org/demo/boot.php) just fine e, but wouldn't successfully execute an ipxe file that pointed to that same example file.

1/10/2014 9:17:25 PM

what is your windows target? use the doc on etherboot.org, it's way more substantial in my experience. chainloading iscsi from gpxe worked well for me with windows

1/11/2014 2:36:19 AM

So do you think I'm better off chain loading into an iscsi target with the installation files? I'll check out that document.

1/11/2014 12:34:13 PM

no, do a normal install of windows to your iscsi target then chainload iscsi to boot from it later

1/11/2014 6:37:47 PM

Is the webserver on the same box as a the iPXE server? if not, thats what I'm suggesting. Its very possibly a permissions/access issue otherwise. Turn on verbose logging on the web server, and check the logs to see exactly what's happening

1/11/2014 8:27:31 PM

Smooth, for a Linux install I will probably do that... but with windows I don't want to run windows diskless, I simply want to install windows, then use iscsi to recover an image of my system. I want this system to be something I can restore systems with... Which is probably way harder than throwing DVDs into a drawer (however I am aiming to have a diskless Linux distro available, as well)

Yeah its on the same box. Maybe I botched my installation of ipxe? But I would imagine I'd never be able to manually boot the demo if that was the case....

I have tftp point to an undionly.kpxe file and use cntrl+b to get to the ipxe command line.

Edit: Progress! I had an idea just after I posted this... It worked with the demo ipxe set up, so I figured I'd create a demo file and place it into the directory that my windows 7 stuff is in. The file loaded and executed successfully (it attempted to load the Linux kernel and failed, since I didn't get nay of that. But it executed!

So, that tells me that my ipxe file is jacked up... Here's mine... I tried theirs verbatim before, no dice, so I threw this back in

#!ipxe

  set wimboot-path http://192.168.1.10/Win7
  kernel ${wimboot-path}/wimboot
  initrd ${wimboot-path}/W7/bootmgr          bootmgr
  initrd ${wimboot-path}/W7/boot/bcd         BCD
  initrd ${wimboot-path}/W7/boot/boot.sdi    boot.sdi
  initrd ${wimboot-path}/W7/sources/boot.wim boot.wim
  imgstat
  boot

  #!ipxe
  
  kernel wimboot
  initrd bootmgr          bootmgr
  initrd boot/bcd         BCD
  initrd boot/boot.sdi    boot.sdi
  initrd sources/boot.wim boot.wim
  imgstat
  boot

1/11/2014 9:55:47 PM

do you want iscsi winPE to recover your windows partitions or just an iscsi target with a backup? if it's the latter, you don't need ipxe at all

1/15/2014 3:31:49 PM

He wants to be able to provision new OS installs through an iPXE server on the network.

This is how we flatten and reinstall pretty much every individual's PC here at work. It's a damn dream.

1/15/2014 5:57:10 PM

well, you could use ipxe for that, but it seems like a lot of over engineering for task you aren't likely to repeat often at home. especially if you aren't going to keep the iscsi install lun up to date with patches. this is what windows deployment services is for and it's free with windows server

1/16/2014 10:02:04 AM

It is indeed overkill, I won't dispute that at all.

But after my girlfriends hard drive shit the bed, and I couldn't find any physical media, I pulled the iso files for an installation disk. Then realized I didn't have any DVDs... It was kind of a pain in the ass. So I found this solution, and wanted to go this route, especially since I can use it to run diskless installs in the future, too.

[Edited on January 16, 2014 at 8:50 PM. Reason : I'm bored and I needed a project ]

1/16/2014 8:49:35 PM

Quote :

"this is what windows deployment services is for and it's free with windows server"

My thoughts exactly. Though that does mean spending a pretty decent chunk of change (looks like 400 bucks http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16832416577)

1/17/2014 2:11:20 AM

i figured it out. my ipxe file had the commends indented by a couple of spaces. this caused it to choke. i compared the working ipxe demo and non-working ipxe file i created and discovered this was my problem. I used an unpacked w7 iso i had, for x64 on a VM. it started to load fine but the VM is only 32bit.

Going to try doing this with a 32 bit iso now, and go from there.

then... of to get it working with winPE

1/18/2014 3:19:59 PM

^^ I BELIEVE, with some registry hacks you can get this working with windows home server, which is available for like $20. it's basically just a tftp/dhcp server with a windows style gui, doesn't need to be current

1/18/2014 5:21:40 PM

So, I got it all configured I think. Its probably not the most elegant, but its easy enough to work once it is all set up.

I load ipxe, and run the file for the designated installation. This file will sanhook an iscsi drive with an unpacked iso of the installation media. Then it cues wimboot from the http server. Windows runs, sees the I so on the iscsi drive to source the remainder of the installation media, and runs like a champ.

From here I can install windows to a local drive, or onto a manually sanhooked iscsi target.

Next steps I guess will be figuring out if I can get my iscsi drive with my system images on it available for a restore. This may be more difficult to do without using winPE, since those iscsi drives require authentication.

1/18/2014 8:28:55 PM