Easy way to enable PXE on your local network

[wlanboy]

I am using a user friendly router at home. Great for guest wlan and even separated lans, but it is not able to add boot information on the DHCP service.
But - thanks to dnsmasq - you are able to add this information without modifying your router. It is able to enrich the DHCP response.


Installation is simple:


apt-get install dnsmasq


Afterwards move the original configuration:


mv /etc/dnsmasq.conf /etc/dnsmasq-bak.conf


And create a new one:


nano /etc/dnsmasq.conf


With following content:


port=0
dhcp-range=192.168.178.0,proxy
dhcp-boot=pxelinux.,192.168.178.30,192.168.178.0
pxe-service=x86PC,"Automatic Network boot",pxelinux
enable-tftp
tftp-root=/usr/tftproot
pxe-prompt="Press F8 for selection",5
pxe-service=X86PC,"Boot from harddrive",


DNS is disabled by the "port=0" command. DHCP range is given by your router.
"192.168.178.30" is the ip of the linux server running the dnsmasq instance. 


You do not have to install a ftp server, tftp is part of the dnsmasq service. Just add the information where the boot files are stored.


After that you have to define what pxe-services or boot images you are providing. Due to the additional config files and default settings this will be part of my next tutorial.

 

[drmike]

I am using a user friendly router at home. Great for guest wlan and even separated lans, but it is not able to add boot information on the DHCP service.
But - thanks to dnsmasq - you are able to add this information without modifying your router. It is able to enrich the DHCP response.


Installation is simple:



apt-get install dnsmasq


Afterwards move the original configuration:



mv /etc/dnsmasq.conf /etc/dnsmasq-bak.conf


And create a new one:



nano /etc/dnsmasq.conf


With following content:



port=0
dhcp-range=192.168.178.0,proxy
dhcp-boot=pxelinux.,192.168.178.30,192.168.178.0
pxe-service=x86PC,"Automatic Network boot",pxelinux
enable-tftp
tftp-root=/usr/tftproot
pxe-prompt="Press F8 for selection",5
pxe-service=X86PC,"Boot from harddrive",


DNS is disabled by the "port=0" command. DHCP range is given by your router.
"192.168.178.30" is the ip of the linux server running the dnsmasq instance. 


You do not have to install a ftp server, tftp is part of the dnsmasq service. Just add the information where the boot files are stored.


After that you have to define what pxe-services or boot images you are providing. Due to the additional config files and default settings this will be part of my next tutorial.

Awesome man!  I love dnsmasq - central to my ad blocking and DNS based cleanup of LANs.


PXE server is fine to serve up ISOs right?  Looking forward to the next installment so I can start using this too.

 

[wlanboy]

PXE server is fine to serve up ISOs right?  Looking forward to the next installment so I can start using this too.

The content of the ISOs. You are able to serve as much boot images as you like.
You can even create a semi-nice looking cmenu for each image.