PXE boot after Flash boot? (was Re: Flash Drive)

[Jason Kohles]

On 11/17/05, Mark Heslep <mark at mitre.org> wrote:
>
>
> An aside to your aside on PXE: I do the same when Im on a local net
> where I control the DCHP server and can set the 'next server' pointer to
> my PXE server. On that server I have archived dozens of linux flavors,
> Knoppix, Windows Unattended, etc. and can install all of them via PXE
> with customized kickstart files. Problem is, on our wide area net I
> dont control the DHCP server. Id like to still be able to boot a
> remove machine from flash drive with the smarts to get me to the PXE
> server. A given RH/Fedora boot kernel + initrd will only allow you to
> install its matching distro version. Any thoughts on ways around
> this?* Perhaps there's a way to chain boot into a PXE 'like' image
> with the IP address of the PXE server already dialed in. It still
> needs to make the DHCP request though to get its IP, gateway router,
> maybe DNS, etc at the remote site.


The way I've done this is to have a boot cd (or flash disk), which downloads
the initrd and vmlinuz necessary for the install you are going to do,
creates a boot partition (or reuses the existing boot partition), puts the
initrd an vmlinuz in there, configures grub, and then reboots, booting from
the hard drive, but into an environment very similar to what you would have
received from PXE.

--
Jason Kohles
email at jasonkohles.com - http://www.jasonkohles.com/
"A witty saying proves nothing." -- Voltaire
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