Description

So what do you do when you do not have an optical drive for a computer or server and you would like to install Linux?

You have two options, use a USB device (CD-ROM, Hard Drive, or Thumb drive) or PXE booting and doing a full network install. This article will discuss the latter.

Requirements

The following application(s) must be installed, configured and running before tftp-hpa is installed:

• rsync
• isc-dhcp – ISC Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol server
• tftp-hpa – BSD derived TFTP Server
• PXE Boot Menu with submenus

Preparation for Installation

Start PuTTY on a Windows PC, Terminal on a Mac or similar terminal application on a Linux PC.

In this example Terminal on a Mac is used.

Open a remote SSH session to the server with:

Mac:~ user$ ssh user@192.168.1.4 [enter]

N.B.: Replace user@192.168.1.4 with User ID and IP Address on Your server!

[user@server ~]$

Enable superuser privileges with:

[user@server ~]$ sudo -s [enter]
Password: <-- passwd [enter]
[root@server /usr/home/user]#

N.B.: Enter user password, not the root password!

Installation

The server used in this example is configured to contain one partition called /tftpboot used for PXE related files.

Add the Disk Imaging and Partitioning Utility option to the PXE Boot Main Menu with:

[root@server /usr/home/user]# ee /tftpboot/pxelinux.cfg/default [enter]

…the add the following text, example:

...
MENU COLOR HOTKEY 0 #ff00ff00 #ee000000 std
MENU COLOR HOTSEL 0 #ffffffff #85000000 std

LABEL f1
MENU LABEL ^1)  Disk Imaging and Partitioning Utilities
KERNEL vesamenu.c32
APPEND top.cfg f01.cfg bottom.cfg

LABEL blank
MENU LABEL
...

The PXE Boot Sub-Menu for Disk Imaging and Partitioning Utilities is defined in file /tftpboot/f01.cfg.

Create this file with:

[root@server /usr/home/user]# ee /tftpboot/f01.cfg [enter]

..and then add the following text, example:

MENU TITLE  Disk Imaging and Partitioning Utilities

Change file modes

Change file modes for file /tftpboot/f01.cfg with:

[root@server ~]# chmod -R 755 /tftpboot/f01.cfg [enter]
[root@server /usr/home/user]#

Create a folder for Disk Imaging and Partitioning Utilities files with:

[root@server /usr/home/user]# mkdir /tftpboot/f01 [enter]
[root@server /usr/home/user]#

NFSv4 Server Setup

Service start on boot

List installed NFS services with:

[root@server /usr/home/user]# service -r | grep /nfs [enter]
/etc/rc.d/nfsclient
/etc/rc.d/nfsuserd
/etc/rc.d/nfsd
/etc/rc.d/nfscbd
[root@server /usr/home/user]#

Find the rcvar for /etc/rc.d/nfsclient with:

[root@server /usr/home/user]# /etc/rc.d/nfsclient rcvar [enter]
# nfsclient : NFS client setup
#
nfs_client_enable="NO"
#   (default: "")

[root@server /usr/home/user]#

Find the rcvar for /etc/rc.d/nfsuserd with:

[root@server /usr/home/user]# /etc/rc.d/nfsuserd rcvar [enter]
# nfsuserd : Load user and group information into the kernel for NFSv4 services and support manage-gids for all NFS versions
#
nfsuserd_enable="NO"
#   (default: "")

[root@server /usr/home/user]#

Find the rcvar for /etc/rc.d/nfsd with:

[root@server /usr/home/user]# /etc/rc.d/nfsd rcvar [enter]
# nfsd : Remote NFS server
#
nfs_server_enable="NO"
#   (default: "")

[root@server /usr/home/user]#

Find the rcvar for /etc/rc.d/nfscbd with:

[root@server /usr/home/user]# /etc/rc.d/nfscbd rcvar [enter]
# nfscbd : NFSv4 client side callback daemon
#
nfscbd_enable="NO"
#   (default: "")

[root@server /usr/home/user]#

N.B.: Since an NFSv4 mount uses the host uuid to identify the client uniquely to the server, you cannot safely do an NFSv4 mount when
it is set to hostid_enable=”NO”!

Add the following to /etc/rc.conf, assuming they’re not already there:

[root@server /usr/home/user]# echo '' >> /etc/rc.conf; echo '# NFS Server' >> /etc/rc.conf; echo 'rpcbind_enable="YES"' >> /etc/rc.conf; echo 'mountd_enable="YES"' >> /etc/rc.conf; echo 'nfs_server_enable="YES"' >> /etc/rc.conf; echo 'nfsv4_server_enable="YES"' >> /etc/rc.conf; echo 'nfsuserd_enable="YES"' >> /etc/rc.conf [enter]

Export Settings

Now we need to create an NFS export settings file /etc/exports with:

[root@server /usr/home/user]# ee /etc/exports [enter]

…and the add the following text:

V4: /
/tmp \
-maproot=root -network 192.168.1.0 -mask 255.255.255.0

This example assumes your network is 192.168.1.0/24; if it’s something else, you’ll need to make appropriate changes.

Now start all of the above services:

[root@server /usr/home/user]# service rpcbind start [enter]
Starting rpcbind.
[root@server /usr/home/user]#

[root@server /usr/home/user]# service mountd start [enter]
Starting mountd.
[root@server /usr/home/user]#

[root@server /usr/home/user]# service nfsd start [enter]
Starting nfsd.
[root@server /usr/home/user]#

Verify that the NFS mount is being exported with:

[root@server /usr/home/user]# showmount -e [enter]
Exports list on localhost:
/tmp                               192.168.1.0
[root@server /usr/home/user]#

After you have performed an update of file /etc/exports, re-read the exports settings with:

[root@server /usr/home/user]# service mountd reload [enter]
[root@server /usr/home/user]#

If your NFS exported directories will not be accessed locally (and Samba counts as local access), then you can enable NFSv4 delegations to improve performance. On a FreeBSD NFS server, they may be enabled globally for all exports by adding the following line to /etc/sysctl.conf with:

[root@server /usr/home/user]# echo 'vfs.nfsd.issue_delegations=1' >> /etc/sysctl.conf [enter]
[root@server /usr/home/user]#

packet filter (pf)

Access to the tftpd service must be enabled in the packet filter (pf) configuration file.

Start editing file /etc/pf.conf with:

[root@server /usr/home/user]# ee /etc/pf.conf [enter]

…and add port information to enable access to the NFS service from clients on the local network as in this example:

...
# Ports:
...
#  111 TCP UDP   Open Network Computing Remote Procedure Call (ONC RPC, sometimes referred to as Sun RPC)
...
# 2049 TCP UDP	Network File System (NFS)
...
tcp_pass="{ ... 111, ... 2049, ... }"
udp_pass="{ ... 111, ... 2049, ... }"
...

Check /etc/pf.conf for errors, but do not load ruleset with:

[root@server /usr/home/user]# pfctl -vvnf /etc/pf.conf [enter]

…and then reload /etc/pf.conf with:

[root@server /usr/home/user]# service pf reload  [enter]
Reloading pf rules.
[root@server /usr/home/user]#

GParted Live

GNOME Partition Editor for creating, reorganizing, and deleting disk partitions. It uses libparted from the parted project to detect and manipulate partition tables. Optional file system tools permit managing file systems not included in libparted.

GParted Live is a small bootable GNU/Linux distribution for x86 based computers.

It enables you to use all the features of the latest versions of the GParted application.

WWW: http://gparted.sourceforge.net/livecd.php/.

Files: https://sourceforge.net/projects/gparted/files/.

Requirements

GParted is a free partition manager that enables you to resize, copy, and move partitions without data loss.

amd64

The 64-bit version of GParted runs on x86-64 based computers, with the ability to access more than 4 gigabytes of memory, and supports the use of multiple processor cores.

For newer (>2010) computers with UEFI instead of legacy BIOS try this one.

Download gparted-live-0.28.1-1-amd64.zip, 271 MB, with:

[root@server /usr/home/user]# wget https://sourceforge.net/projects/gparted/files/gparted-live-stable/0.28.1-1/gparted-live-0.28.1-1-amd64.zip [enter]

Create direcory /tftpboot/f01/gparted with:

[root@server /usr/home/user]# mkdir -p /tftpboot/f01/gparted [enter]
[root@server /usr/home/user]#

Extract zip file gparted-live-0.28.1-1-amd64.zip into directory /tftpboot/f01/gparted/i686/ with:

[root@server /usr/home/user]# unzip gparted-live-0.28.1-1-amd64.zip live/* -d /tftpboot/f01/gparted/amd64 [enter]
Archive:  gparted-live-0.28.1-1-amd64.zip
 extracting: /tftpboot/f01/gparted/amd64/live/memtest  
 extracting: /tftpboot/f01/gparted/amd64/live/GParted-Live-Version  
 extracting: /tftpboot/f01/gparted/amd64/live/initrd.img  
 extracting: /tftpboot/f01/gparted/amd64/live/filesystem.packages-remove  
 extracting: /tftpboot/f01/gparted/amd64/live/filesystem.packages  
 extracting: /tftpboot/f01/gparted/amd64/live/vmlinuz  
 extracting: /tftpboot/f01/gparted/amd64/live/filesystem.squashfs
[root@server /usr/home/user]#

Delete downloaded zip files with:

[root@server /usr/home/user]# rm gparted-live-0.28.1-1-amd64.zip [enter]
[root@server /usr/home/user]#

The TFTP root directory permission plays an important role. Make sure that the permission and ownership are set correctly with:

[root@server /usr/home/user]# chown -R tftpd:nobody /tftpboot/f01/gparted [enter]
[root@server /usr/home/user]# chmod -R 755 /tftpboot/f01/gparted/amd64/live [enter]
[root@server /usr/home/user]#

Edit file /tftpboot/f01.cfg with:

[root@server /usr/home/user]# ee /tftpboot/f01.cfg [enter]

…and add the following lines:

LABEL f1
MENU LABEL ^1)  GParted Live v. 0.28.1-1-amd64
MENU PASSWD
TEXT HELP
GParted is used for creating, reorganizing and deleting disk partitions.
The amd64 version runs on x86-64 based computers, with ability to access
more than 4 gigabytes of memory and supports use of multiple processor cores.
For newer (>2010) computers with UEFI instead of legacy BIOS 
ENDTEXT
KERNEL f01/gparted/amd64/live/vmlinuz
APPEND initrd=f01/gparted/amd64/live/initrd.img boot=live union=overlay username=tftpd config components quiet noswap edd=on nomodeset nodmraid noeject locales="en_US.UTF-8" keyboard-layouts="se" ocs_live_run="ocs-live-general" ocs_live_extra_param="" ocs_live_batch=no vga=791 ip= net.ifnames=0 nosplash i915.blacklist=yes radeonhd.blacklist=yes nouveau.blacklist=yes vmwgfx.enable_fbdev=1 netboot=nfs nfsroot=$nfsserverIP:/tftpboot/f01/gparted/amd64/

N.B.: Replace $nfsserverIP with the IP address of your NFS server!

NFS Export Update

Edit file /etc/exports with:

[root@server /usr/home/user]# ee /etc/exports [enter]

…and add the following text:

V4: /
/tftpboot/f01/gparted/amd64 \
-maproot=root -network 192.168.1.0 -mask 255.255.255.0

Reload the NFS mount setup with:

[root@server /usr/home/user]# service mountd reload [enter]
[root@server /usr/home/user]#

Display the NFS mount setup with:

[root@server /usr/home/user]# showmount -e [enter]
Exports list on localhost:
/tftpboot/f01/gparted/amd64        192.168.1.0
[root@server /usr/home/user]#

i686 PAE (Physical Address Extension)

The 32-bit version of Gparted runs on x86 (i686 and higher) and x86-64 based computers, with Physical Address Extension to access more than 4 gigabytes of memory, and supports the use of multiple processor cores.

Download 0.28.1-1-i686-pae, 273 MB, with:

[root@server /usr/home/user]# wget https://sourceforge.net/projects/gparted/files/gparted-live-stable/0.28.1-1/gparted-live-0.28.1-1-i686-pae.zip [enter]

Extract zip file ~/gparted-live-0.28.1-1-i686-pae.zip into directory /tftpboot/f01/gparted/i686-pae/ with:

[root@server /usr/home/user]# unzip gparted-live-0.28.1-1-i686-pae.zip live/* -d /tftpboot/f01/gparted/i686-pae [enter]
Archive:  gparted-live-0.28.1-1-i686-pae.zip
 extracting: /tftpboot/f01/gparted/i686-pae/live/memtest  
 extracting: /tftpboot/f01/gparted/i686-pae/live/GParted-Live-Version  
 extracting: /tftpboot/f01/gparted/i686-pae/live/initrd.img  
 extracting: /tftpboot/f01/gparted/i686-pae/live/filesystem.packages-remove  
 extracting: /tftpboot/f01/gparted/i686-pae/live/filesystem.packages  
 extracting: /tftpboot/f01/gparted/i686-pae/live/vmlinuz  
 extracting: /tftpboot/f01/gparted/i686-pae/live/filesystem.squashfs
[root@server /usr/home/user]#

Delete downloaded zip files with:

[root@server /usr/home/user]# rm gparted-live-0.28.1-1-i686-pae.zip [enter]
[root@server /usr/home/user]#

The TFTP root directory permission plays an important role. Make sure that the permission and ownership are set correctly with:

[root@server /usr/home/user]# chown -R tftpd:nobody /tftpboot/f01/gparted [enter]
[root@server /usr/home/user]# chmod -R 755 /tftpboot/f01/gparted/i686-pae/live [enter]
[root@server /usr/home/user]#

Edit file /tftpboot/f01.cfg with:

[root@server /usr/home/user]# ee /tftpboot/f01.cfg [enter]

…and add the following lines:

LABEL f2
MENU LABEL ^2)  GParted Live v. 0.28.1-1-i686-pae (Physical Address Extension)
MENU PASSWD
TEXT HELP
GParted is used for creating, reorganizing and deleting disk partitions.
The i686-pae version runs on x86 (i686 and higher) and x86-64 based computers, with
Physical Address Extension to access more than 4 gigabytes of memory, and supports
use of multiple processor cores.
ENDTEXT
KERNEL f01/gparted/i686-pae/live/vmlinuz
APPEND initrd=f01/gparted/i686-pae/live/initrd.img boot=live union=overlay username=tftpd config components quiet noswap edd=on nomodeset nodmraid noeject locales="en_US.UTF-8" keyboard-layouts="se" ocs_live_run="ocs-live-general" ocs_live_extra_param="" ocs_live_batch=no vga=788 ip= net.ifnames=0 nosplash i915.blacklist=yes radeonhd.blacklist=yes nouveau.blacklist=yes vmwgfx.enable_fbdev=1 netboot=nfs nfsroot=$nfsserverIP:/tftpboot/f01/gparted/i686-pae/

N.B.: Replace $nfsserverIP with the IP address of your NFS server!

NFS Export Update

Edit file /etc/exports with:

[root@server /usr/home/user]# ee /etc/exports [enter]

…and add the following text:

V4: /
/tftpboot/f01/gparted/amd64 \
/tftpboot/f01/gparted/i686-pae \
-maproot=root -network 192.168.1.0 -mask 255.255.255.0

Reload the NFS mount setup with:

[root@server /usr/home/user]# service mountd reload [enter]
[root@server /usr/home/user]#

Display the NFS mount setup with:

[root@server /usr/home/user]# showmount -e [enter]
Exports list on localhost:
/tftpboot/f01/gparted/i686-pae     192.168.1.0
/tftpboot/f01/gparted/amd64        192.168.1.0
[root@server /usr/home/user]#

i686

32-bit version of GParted runs on x86 and x86-64 based computers, limited to physical address space of 4 gigabytes, and uses one processor only.

If in doubt, try this one first!

Download gparted-live-0.28.1-1-i686.zip, 272 MB, with:

[root@server /usr/home/user]# wget https://sourceforge.net/projects/gparted/files/gparted-live-stable/0.28.1-1/gparted-live-0.28.1-1-i686.zip [enter]

Extract zip file ~/gparted-live-0.28.1-1-i686.zip into directory /tftpboot/f01/gparted/i686/ with:

[root@server /usr/home/user]# unzip gparted-live-0.28.1-1-i686.zip live/* -d /tftpboot/f01/gparted/i686 [enter]
Archive:  gparted-live-0.28.1-1-i686.zip
 extracting: /tftpboot/f01/gparted/i686/live/memtest  
 extracting: /tftpboot/f01/gparted/i686/live/GParted-Live-Version  
 extracting: /tftpboot/f01/gparted/i686/live/initrd.img  
 extracting: /tftpboot/f01/gparted/i686/live/filesystem.packages-remove  
 extracting: /tftpboot/f01/gparted/i686/live/filesystem.packages  
 extracting: /tftpboot/f01/gparted/i686/live/vmlinuz  
 extracting: /tftpboot/f01/gparted/i686/live/filesystem.squashfs
[root@server /usr/home/user]#

Delete downloaded zip files with:

[root@server /usr/home/user]# rm gparted-live-0.28.1-1-i686.zip [enter]
[root@server /usr/home/user]#

The TFTP root directory permission plays an important role. Make sure that the permission and ownership are set correctly with:

[root@server /usr/home/user]# chown -R tftpd:nobody /tftpboot/f01/gparted [enter]
[root@server /usr/home/user]# chmod -R 755 /tftpboot/f01/gparted/i686/live [enter]
[root@server /usr/home/user]#

Edit file /tftpboot/f01.cfg with:

[root@server /usr/home/user]# ee /tftpboot/f01.cfg [enter]

…and add the following lines:

LABEL f3
MENU LABEL ^3)  GParted Live v. 0.28.1-1-i686
MENU PASSWD
TEXT HELP
GParted is used for creating, reorganizing and deleting disk partitions.
The i686 version runs on x86 and x86-64 based computers, limited to physical
address space of 4 gigabytes, and uses one processor only.
-- If in doubt, try this one first! --
ENDTEXT
KERNEL f01/gparted/i686/live/vmlinuz
APPEND initrd=f01/gparted/i686/live/initrd.img boot=live union=overlay username=tftpd config components quiet noswap edd=on nomodeset nodmraid noeject locales="en_US.UTF-8" keyboard-layouts="se" ocs_live_run="ocs-live-general" ocs_live_extra_param="" ocs_live_batch=no vga=788 ip= net.ifnames=0 nosplash i915.blacklist=yes radeonhd.blacklist=yes nouveau.blacklist=yes vmwgfx.enable_fbdev=1 netboot=nfs nfsroot=$nfsserverIP:/tftpboot/f01/gparted/i686/

N.B.: Replace $nfsserverIP with the IP address of your NFS server!

NFS Export Update

Edit file /etc/exports with:

[root@server /usr/home/user]# ee /etc/exports [enter]

…and add the following text:

V4: /
/tftpboot/f01/gparted/amd64 \
/tftpboot/f01/gparted/i686-pae \
/tftpboot/f01/gparted/i686 \
-maproot=root -network 192.168.1.0 -mask 255.255.255.0

Reload the NFS mount setup with:

[root@server /usr/home/user]# service mountd reload [enter]
[root@server /usr/home/user]#

Display the NFS mount setup with:

[root@server /usr/home/user]# showmount -e [enter]
Exports list on localhost:
/tftpboot/f01/gparted/i686-pae     192.168.1.0 
/tftpboot/f01/gparted/i686         192.168.1.0 
/tftpboot/f01/gparted/amd64        192.168.1.0
[root@server /usr/home/user]#

Clonezilla Live

You’re probably familiar with the popular proprietary commercial package Norton Ghost®. The problem with this kind of software packages is that it takes a lot of time to massively clone systems to many computers. You’ve probably also heard of Symantec’s solution to this problem, Symantec Ghost Corporate Edition® with multicasting. Well, now there is an OpenSource clone system (OCS) solution called Clonezilla with unicasting and multicasting!

Clonezilla, based on DRBL, Partclone and udpcast, allows you to do bare metal backup and recovery. Two types of Clonezilla are available, Clonezilla live and Clonezilla SE (server edition). Clonezilla live is suitable for single machine backup and restore. While Clonezilla SE is for massive deployment, it can clone many (40 plus!) computers simultaneously. Clonezilla saves and restores only used blocks in the harddisk. This increases the cloning efficiency. At the NCHC’s Classroom C, Clonezilla SE was used to clone 41 computers simultaneously. It took only about 10 minutes to clone a 5.6 GBytes system image to all 41 computers via multicasting!

WWW: http://clonezilla.org/.

Files: https://sourceforge.net/projects/clonezilla/files/.

amd64

Download Clonezilla Live Stable amd64, 187 MB, optimized for use on PCs with amd64 CPU computers with:

[root@server /usr/home/user]# wget https://sourceforge.net/projects/clonezilla/files/clonezilla_live_stable/2.5.0-25/clonezilla-live-2.5.0-25-amd64.zip [enter]

Create direcory /tftpboot/f01/clonezilla/amd64 with:

[root@server /usr/home/user]# mkdir -p /tftpboot/f01/clonezilla/amd64 [enter]
[root@server /usr/home/user]#

Extract zip file clonezilla-live-2.5.0-25-amd64.zip to /tftpboot/f01/clonezilla/amd64 with:

[root@srvgw ~]# unzip clonezilla-live-2.5.0-25-amd64.zip live/* -d /tftpboot/f01/clonezilla/amd64 [enter]
Archive:  /clonezilla-live-2.5.0-25-amd64.zip
 extracting: /tftpboot/f01/clonezilla/amd64/live/ipxe.efi  
 extracting: /tftpboot/f01/clonezilla/amd64/live/filesystem.packages-remove  
 extracting: /tftpboot/f01/clonezilla/amd64/live/vmlinuz  
 extracting: /tftpboot/f01/clonezilla/amd64/live/ipxe.lkn  
 extracting: /tftpboot/f01/clonezilla/amd64/live/initrd.img  
 extracting: /tftpboot/f01/clonezilla/amd64/live/freedos.img  
 extracting: /tftpboot/f01/clonezilla/amd64/live/filesystem.packages  
 extracting: /tftpboot/f01/clonezilla/amd64/live/memtest  
 extracting: /tftpboot/f01/clonezilla/amd64/live/Clonezilla-Live-Version  
 extracting: /tftpboot/f01/clonezilla/amd64/live/filesystem.squashfs
[root@server /usr/home/user]#

Delete downloaded .zip file with;

[root@server /usr/home/user]# rm clonezilla-live-2.5.0-25-amd64.zip [enter]
[root@server /usr/home/user]#

The TFTP root directory permission plays an important role. Make sure that the permission and ownership are set correctly with:

[root@server /usr/home/user]# chown -R tftpd:nobody /tftpboot/f01/clonezilla/amd64/live [enter]
[root@server /usr/home/user]# chmod -R 755 /tftpboot/f01/clonezilla/amd64/live [enter]
[root@server /usr/home/user]#

PXE Boot Sub-Menu

Edit file /tftpboot/f01.cfg with:

[root@server /usr/home/user]# ee /tftpboot/f01.cfg

..and add the following text, example:

LABEL f4
MENU LABEL ^4)  CloneZilla v. 2.5.0-25 amd64
MENU PASSWD
TEXT HELP
Cloning of PC hard disks for backup or deploy a common setup on a number
of PCs using a Server.
The amd64 version runs on x86-64 based computers, with ability to access more
than 4 gigabytes of memory and supports use of multiple processor cores.
ENDTEXT
KERNEL f01/clonezilla/amd64/live/vmlinuz
APPEND initrd=f01/clonezilla/amd64/live/initrd.img boot=live toram union=overlay username=tftpd config components quiet noswap edd=on nomodeset nodmraid noeject locales="en_US.UTF-8" keyboard-layouts="se" ocs_live_run="ocs-live-general" ocs_live_extra_param="" ocs_live_batch=no vga=791 ip= net.ifnames=0 nosplash i915.blacklist=yes radeonhd.blacklist=yes nouveau.blacklist=yes vmwgfx.enable_fbdev=1 netboot=nfs nfsroot=$nfsserverIP:/tftpboot/f01/clonezilla/amd64/

N.B.: Replace $nfsserverIP with the IP address of your NFS server!

NFS Export Update

Edit file /etc/exports with:

[root@server /usr/home/user]# ee /etc/exports [enter]

…and add the following text:

V4: /
...
/tftpboot/f01/clonezilla/amd64 \
-maproot=root -network 192.168.1.0 -mask 255.255.255.0

Reload the NFS mount setup with:

[root@server /usr/home/user]# service mountd reload [enter]
[root@server /usr/home/user]#

Display the NFS mount setup with:

[root@server /usr/home/user]# showmount -e [enter]
Exports list on localhost:
...
/tftpboot/f01/clonezilla/amd64     192.168.1.0
[root@server /usr/home/user]#

i686-PAE (Physical Address Extension)

Download Clonezilla Live Stable i686-pae, 188 MB, optimized for use on PCs with i686 CPU computers with:

[root@server /usr/home/user]# wget https://sourceforge.net/projects/clonezilla/files/clonezilla_live_stable/2.5.0-25/clonezilla-live-2.5.0-25-i686-pae.zip [enter]

Create directory /tftpboot/f01/clonezilla/i686-pae with:

[root@server /usr/home/user]# mkdir -p /tftpboot/f01/clonezilla/i686-pae [enter]
[root@server /usr/home/user]#

Extract zip file clonezilla-live-2.5.0-25-i686-pae.zip to /tftpboot/f01/clonezilla/i686-pae with:

[root@srvgw ~]# unzip clonezilla-live-2.5.0-25-i686-pae.zip live/* -d /tftpboot/f01/clonezilla/i686-pae [enter]
Archive:  /clonezilla-live-2.5.0-25-i686-pae.zip
 extracting: /tftpboot/f01/clonezilla/i686-pae/live/ipxe.efi  
 extracting: /tftpboot/f01/clonezilla/i686-pae/live/filesystem.packages-remov  |
 extracting: /tftpboot/f01/clonezilla/i686-pae/live/vmlinuz  
 extracting: /tftpboot/f01/clonezilla/i686-pae/live/ipxe.lkn  
 extracting: /tftpboot/f01/clonezilla/i686-pae/live/initrd.img  
 extracting: /tftpboot/f01/clonezilla/i686-pae/live/freedos.img  
 extracting: /tftpboot/f01/clonezilla/i686-pae/live/filesystem.packages  
 extracting: /tftpboot/f01/clonezilla/i686-pae/live/memtest  
 extracting: /tftpboot/f01/clonezilla/i686-pae/live/Clonezilla-Live-Version  
 extracting: /tftpboot/f01/clonezilla/i686-pae/live/filesystem.squashfs
[root@server /usr/home/user]#

Delete downloaded .zip file with;

[root@server /usr/home/user]# rm clonezilla-live-2.5.0-25-i686-pae.zip [enter]
[root@server /usr/home/user]#

The TFTP root directory permission plays an important role. Make sure that the permission and ownership are set correctly with:

[root@server /usr/home/user]# chown -R tftpd:nobody /tftpboot/f01/clonezillai686-pae/live [enter]
[root@server /usr/home/user]# chmod -R 755 /tftpboot/f01/clonezilla/i686-pae/live [enter]
[root@server /usr/home/user]#

PXE Boot Sub-Menu

Edit file /tftpboot/f01.cfg with:

[root@server /usr/home/user]# ee /tftpboot/f01.cfg [enter]

..and add the following text, example:

LABEL f5
MENU LABEL ^5)  CloneZilla v. 2.5.0-25 i686-pae (Physical Address Extension)
MENU PASSWD
TEXT HELP
Cloning of PC hard disks for backup or deploy a common setup on a number
of PCs using a Server.
The i686-pae version runs on x86 (i686 and higher) and x86-64 based computers, with
Physical Address Extension to access more than 4 gigabytes of memory, and supports
use of multiple processor cores.
ENDTEXT
KERNEL f01/clonezilla/i686-pae/live/vmlinuz
APPEND initrd=f01/clonezilla/i686-pae/live/initrd.img boot=live union=overlay username=tftpd config components quiet noswap edd=on nomodeset nodmraid noeject locales="en_US.UTF-8" keyboard-layouts="se" ocs_live_run="ocs-live-general" ocs_live_extra_param="" ocs_live_batch=no vga=791 ip= net.ifnames=0 nosplash i915.blacklist=yes radeonhd.blacklist=yes nouveau.blacklist=yes vmwgfx.enable_fbdev=1 netboot=nfs nfsroot=$nfsserverIP:/tftpboot/f01/clonezilla/i686-pae/

N.B.: Replace $nfsserverIP with the IP address of your NFS server!

NFS Export Update

Edit file /etc/exports with:

[root@server /usr/home/user]# ee /etc/exports [enter]

…and add the following text:

V4: /
...
/tftpboot/f01/clonezilla/amd64 \
/tftpboot/f01/clonezilla/i686-pae \
-maproot=root -network 192.168.1.0 -mask 255.255.255.0

Reload the NFS mount setup with:

[root@server /usr/home/user]# service mountd reload [enter]
[root@server /usr/home/user]#

Display the NFS mount setup with:

[root@server /usr/home/user]# showmount -e [enter]
Exports list on localhost:
...
/tftpboot/f01/clonezilla/i686-pae  192.168.1.0
/tftpboot/f01/clonezilla/amd64     192.168.1.0
[root@server /usr/home/user]#

i686

Download Clonezilla Live Stable i686, 188 MB, optimized for use on PCs with i686 CPU computers with:

[root@server /usr/home/user]# wget https://sourceforge.net/projects/clonezilla/files/clonezilla_live_stable/2.5.0-25/clonezilla-live-2.5.0-25-i686.zip [enter]

Create directory /tftpboot/f01/clonezilla/i686 with:

[root@server /usr/home/user]# mkdir -p /tftpboot/f01/clonezilla/i686 [enter]
[root@server /usr/home/user]#

Extract zip file clonezilla-live-2.5.0-25-i686.zip to /tftpboot/f01/clonezilla/i686 with:

[root@srvgw ~]# unzip clonezilla-live-2.5.0-25-i686.zip live/* -d /tftpboot/f01/clonezilla/i686 [enter]
Archive:  /clonezilla-live-2.5.0-25-i686.zip
 extracting: /tftpboot/f01/clonezilla/i686/live/ipxe.efi  
 extracting: /tftpboot/f01/clonezilla/i686/live/filesystem.packages-remove  
 extracting: /tftpboot/f01/clonezilla/i686/live/vmlinuz  
 extracting: /tftpboot/f01/clonezilla/i686/live/ipxe.lkn  
 extracting: /tftpboot/f01/clonezilla/i686/live/initrd.img  
 extracting: /tftpboot/f01/clonezilla/i686/live/freedos.img  
 extracting: /tftpboot/f01/clonezilla/i686/live/filesystem.packages  
 extracting: /tftpboot/f01/clonezilla/i686/live/memtest  
 extracting: /tftpboot/f01/clonezilla/i686/live/Clonezilla-Live-Version  
 extracting: /tftpboot/f01/clonezilla/i686/live/filesystem.squashfs
[root@server /usr/home/user]#

Delete downloaded .zip file with;

[root@server /usr/home/user]# rm clonezilla-live-2.5.0-25-i686.zip [enter]
[root@server /usr/home/user]#

The TFTP root directory permission plays an important role. Make sure that the permission and ownership are set correctly with:

[root@server /usr/home/user]# chown -R tftpd:nobody /tftpboot/f01/clonezilla/i686/live [enter]
[root@server /usr/home/user]# chmod -R 755 /tftpboot/f01/clonezilla/i686/live [enter]
[root@server /usr/home/user]#

PXE Boot Sub-Menu

Edit file /tftpboot/f01.cfg with:

[root@server /usr/home/user]# ee /tftpboot/f01.cfg [enter]

..and add the following text, example:

LABEL f6
MENU LABEL ^6)  CloneZilla v. 2.5.0-25 i686
MENU PASSWD
TEXT HELP
Cloning of PC hard disks for backup or deploy a common setup on a number
of PCs using a Server.
The i686 version runs on x86 and x86-64 based computers, limited to physical
address space of 4 gigabytes, and uses one processor only.
-- If in doubt, try this one first! --
ENDTEXT
KERNEL f01/clonezilla/i686/live/vmlinuz
APPEND initrd=f01/clonezilla/i686/live/initrd.img boot=live union=overlay username=tftpd config components quiet noswap edd=on nomodeset nodmraid noeject locales="en_US.UTF-8" keyboard-layouts="se" ocs_live_run="ocs-live-general" ocs_live_extra_param="" ocs_live_batch=no vga=791 ip= net.ifnames=0 nosplash i915.blacklist=yes radeonhd.blacklist=yes nouveau.blacklist=yes vmwgfx.enable_fbdev=1 netboot=nfs nfsroot=$nfsserverIP:/tftpboot/f01/clonezilla/i686/

N.B.: Replace $nfsserverIP with the IP address of your NFS server!

NFS Export Update

Edit file /etc/exports with:

[root@server /usr/home/user]# ee /etc/exports [enter]

…and add the following text:

V4: /
...
/tftpboot/f01/clonezilla/amd64 \
/tftpboot/f01/clonezilla/i686-pae \
/tftpboot/f01/clonezilla/i686 \
-maproot=root -network 192.168.1.0 -mask 255.255.255.0

Reload the NFS mount setup with:

[root@server /usr/home/user]# service mountd reload [enter]
[root@server /usr/home/user]#

Display the NFS mount setup with:

[root@server /usr/home/user]# showmount -e [enter]
Exports list on localhost:
...
/tftpboot/f01/clonezilla/i686-pae  192.168.1.0
/tftpboot/f01/clonezilla/i686      192.168.1.0
/tftpboot/f01/clonezilla/amd64     192.168.1.0
[root@server /usr/home/user]#

G4L

G4L is a hard disk and partition imaging and cloning tool. The created images are optionally compressed and transferred to an FTP server or cloned locally. CIFS(Windows), SSHFS and NFS support included, and udpcast and fsarchiver options.

WWW: https://sourceforge.net/projects/g4l/.

Download

Download ISO CD-ROM Image g4l-v0.52.iso, 99 MB, with:

[root@server /usr/home/user]# wget https://sourceforge.net/projects/g4l/files/g4l%20ISO%20images/g4l-v0.52.iso -P /tftpboot/f01/ [enter]

Change file mode with:

[root@server /usr/home/user]# chmod 755 /tftpboot/f01/g4l-v0.52.iso [enter]
[root@server /usr/home/user]#

PXE Boot Sub-Menu

The PXE Boot Sub-Menu for PXE Boot for G4L is defined in file /tftpboot/f01.cfg.

Edit this file with:

[root@server /usr/home/user]# ee /tftpboot/f01.cfg [enter]

..and add the following text, example:

LABEL f7
MENU LABEL ^7)  G4L v. 0.52
TEXT HELP
G4L is a hard disk and partition imaging and cloning tool.
The created images are optionally compressed and transferred
to an FTP server or cloned locally.
ENDTEXT
KERNEL memdisk
APPEND initrd=f01/g4l-v0.52.iso iso raw

G4U (“ghosting for unix”)

G4U is a hard disk and partition imaging and cloning tool. The created images are optionally compressed and transferred to an FTP server or cloned locally. CIFS(Windows), SSHFS and NFS support included, and udpcast and fsarchiver options.

WWW: http://fehu.org/~feyrer/g4u/.

Download

Download ISO CD-ROM Image g4u-2.5.iso, 4.9 MB, with:

[root@server /usr/home/user]# wget http://fehu.org/~feyrer/g4u/g4u-2.5.iso -P /tftpboot/f01/ [enter]

[root@server /usr/home/user]# chmod 755 /tftpboot/f01/g4u-2.5.iso [enter]
[root@server /usr/home/user]#

PXE Boot Sub-Menu

The PXE Boot Sub-Menu for PXE Boot for G4U is defined in file /tftpboot/f01.cfg.

Edit this file with:

[root@server /usr/home/user]# ee /tftpboot/f01.cfg [enter]

..and add the following text, example:

LABEL f8
MENU LABEL ^8)  G4U v. 2.5
TEXT HELP
G4U is a NetBSD-based bootfloppy/CD-ROM that allows easy cloning of
PC harddisks to deploy a common setup on a number of PCs using FTP. 
ENDTEXT
KERNEL memdisk
APPEND initrd=f01/g4u-2.5.iso iso raw

SystemRescueCd 32bit and 64bit kernel

SystemRescueCd is a Linux system rescue disk available as a bootable CD-ROM or USB stick for administrating or repairing your system and data after a crash. It aims to provide an easy way to carry out admin tasks on your computer, such as creating and editing the hard disk partitions. It comes with a lot of Linux software such as system tools (parted, partimage, fstools, …) and basic tools (editors, midnight commander, network tools). It requires no installation. It can be used on Linux servers, Linux desktops or windows boxes. The kernel supports the important file systems (ext2/ext3/ext4, reiserfs, reiser4, btrfs, xfs, jfs, vfat, ntfs, iso9660), as well as network filesystems (samba and nfs).

WWW: http://www.sysresccd.org/.

Files: https://sourceforge.net/projects/systemrescuecd/files/.

Download and Install

Download systemrescuecd-x86-4.9.3.iso, 492 MB, with:

[root@server /usr/home/user]# wget https://sourceforge.net/projects/systemrescuecd/files/sysresccd-x86/4.9.3/systemrescuecd-x86-4.9.3.iso [enter]

Create a memory disk out of the cd9660 image file systemrescuecd-x86-4.9.3.iso, using the first available md(4) device, with:

[root@server /usr/home/user]# mdconfig -a -t vnode -f systemrescuecd-x86-4.9.0.iso [enter]
md0
[root@server /usr/home/user]#

…and then mount it with:

[root@server /usr/home/user]# mount -t cd9660 /dev/md0 /mnt [enter]
[root@server /usr/home/user]#

Create a new directory for the content of the iso image, using this command:

[root@server /usr/home/user]# mkdir -p /tftpboot/f01/rescuecd [enter]
[root@server /usr/home/user]#

Copy the content of the iso file to the new directories, using this commands:

[root@server /usr/home/user]# rsync -e ssh -avz --delete /mnt/ /tftpboot/f01/rescuecd/ [enter]
sending incremental file list
./
readme.txt
...
usb_inst/xorriso

sent 504,580,569 bytes  received 6,810 bytes  32,554,024.45 bytes/sec
total size is 514,891,736  speedup is 1.02
[root@server /usr/home/user]#

Unmount the iso image, using this command:

[root@server /usr/home/user]# umount /mnt [enter]
[root@server /usr/home/user]#

List configured and enabled memory disks on your system, using this command:

[root@server /usr/home/user]# mdconfig -lv [enter]
md0	vnode	  492M	/usr/home/user/systemrescuecd-x86-4.9.3.iso
[root@server /usr/home/user]#

Delete memory disk – in this example md0– with this command:

[root@server /usr/home/user]# mdconfig -d -u 0 [enter]
[root@server /usr/home/user]#

Delete the SystemRescueCd iso image with:

[root@server /usr/home/user]# rm systemrescuecd-x86-4.9.3.iso [enter]
[root@server /usr/home/user]#

Edit file ‘/tftpboot/f01.cfg’ and add the following lines:

[root@server /usr/home/user]# ee /tftpboot/f01.cfg [enter]

LABEL f9
MENU LABEL ^9)  SystemRescueCd 64bit kernel v. 4.9.3
MENU PASSWD
TEXT HELP
SystemRescueCd is a Linux system rescue disk available for administrating or
repairing your system and data after a crash.
ENDTEXT
KERNEL f01/rescuecd/isolinux/rescue64
APPEND setkmap=se initrd=f01/rescuecd/isolinux/initram.igz dodhcp dostartx netboot=nfs://$nfsserverIP:/tftpboot/f01/rescuecd
LABEL f0
MENU LABEL ^0)  SystemRescueCd 32bit kernel v. 4.9.3
MENU PASSWD
TEXT HELP
SystemRescueCd is a Linux system rescue disk available for administrating or
repairing your system and data after a crash.
ENDTEXT
KERNEL f01/rescuecd/isolinux/rescue32
APPEND setkmap=se initrd=f01/rescuecd/isolinux/initram.igz dodhcp dostartx netboot=nfs://$nfsserverIP:/tftpboot/f01/rescuecd
LABEL f9
MENU LABEL ^9)  Hardware Detection Tool v. 0.5.0
MENU PASSWD
TEXT HELP
Reports S.M.A.R.T. data, firmware errorlog, runs firmware tests, scans surface
reporting access times per sector and much more.
ENDTEXT
KERNEL memdisk
APPEND initrd=f01/rescuecd/bootdisk/hdt.img

N.B.: Replace $nfsserverIP with the IP address of your NFS server!

NFS Export Update

Edit file /etc/exports with:

[root@server /usr/home/user]# ee /etc/exports [enter]

…and add the following text:

V4: /
...
/tftpboot/f01/rescuecd \
-maproot=root -network 192.168.1.0 -mask 255.255.255.0

Reload the NFS mount setup with:

[root@server /usr/home/user]# service mountd reload [enter]
[root@server /usr/home/user]#

Display the NFS mount setup with:

[root@server /usr/home/user]# showmount -e [enter]
Exports list on localhost:
...
/tftpboot/f01/rescuecd             192.168.1.0
[root@server /usr/home/user]#

Description

A simple GUI menu system with sub-menus is used for selecting between different tasks.

WWW: http://syslinux.zytor.com/wiki/index.php/Menu.

Files: https://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/boot/syslinux/.

Syslinux 5 Changelog:http://www.syslinux.org/wiki/index.php/Syslinux_6_Changelog#Changes_in_6.03/Menu.

Requirements

The following application(s) must be installed, configured and running before tftp-hpa is installed:

• isc-dhcp – ISC Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol server
• tftp-hpa – BSD derived TFTP Server

Preparation for Installation

Start PuTTY on a Windows PC, Terminal on a Mac or similar terminal application on a Linux PC.

In this example Terminal on a Mac is used.

Open a remote SSH session to the server with:

Mac:~ user$ ssh user@192.168.1.4 [enter]

N.B.: Replace user@192.168.1.4 with User ID and IP Address on Your server!

[user@server ~]$

Enable superuser privileges with:

[user@server ~]$ sudo -s [enter]
Password: <-- passwd [enter]
[root@server /usr/home/user]#

N.B.: Enter user password, not the root password!

Download

Download file syslinux-6.03.tar.xz, about 6.5M, with;;

[root@server /usr/home/user]# wget https://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/boot/syslinux/syslinux-6.03.tar.xz --no-check-certificate [enter]
--2017-03-02 17:46:01--  https://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/boot/syslinux/syslinux-6.03.tar.xz
Resolving www.kernel.org (www.kernel.org)... 199.204.44.194, 149.20.4.69, 198.145.20.140, ...
Connecting to www.kernel.org (www.kernel.org)|199.204.44.194|:443... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK
Length: 6855224 (6,5M) [application/x-xz]
Saving to: ‘syslinux-6.03.tar.xz’

syslinux-6.03.tar.xz                         100%[============================================================================================>]   6,54M   765KB/s    in 9,8s    

2017-03-02 17:46:12 (683 KB/s) - ‘syslinux-6.03.tar.xz’ saved [6855224/6855224]
[root@server /usr/home/user]#

Wait for download to be completed and than extract ~/syslinux-6.03.tar.xz with:

[root@server /usr/home/user]# tar -xf syslinux-6.03.tar.xz [enter]
[root@server /usr/home/user]#

Installation

For the lwIP embedded TCP/IP network stack copy file syslinux-6.03/bios/core/pxelinux.0 to /tftpboot/ with:

[root@server /usr/home/user]# cp syslinux-6.03/bios/core/pxelinux.0 /tftpboot/ [enter]
[root@server /usr/home/user]#

For the new lwIP embedded TCP/IP network stack copy file ~/syslinux-6.03/bios/core/lpxelinux.0 to /tftpboot/ with:

[root@server /usr/home/user]# cp syslinux-6.03/bios/core/lpxelinux.0 /tftpboot/ [enter]
[root@server /usr/home/user]#

For the legacy TCP/IP network stack copy file syslinux-6.03/bios/gpxe/gpxelinux.0 to /tftpboot/ with:

[root@server /usr/home/user]# cp syslinux-6.03/bios/gpxe/gpxelinux.0 /tftpboot/ [enter]
[root@server /usr/home/user]#

Copy file ~/syslinux-6.03/bios/com32/lib/libcom32.c32 to /tftpboot/ with:

[root@server /usr/home/user]# cp syslinux-6.03/bios/com32/lib/libcom32.c32 /tftpboot/ [enter]
[root@server /usr/home/user]#

Copy file ~/syslinux-6.03/bios/com32/libutil/libutil.c32 to /tftpboot/ with:

[root@server /usr/home/user]# cp syslinux-6.03/bios/com32/libutil/libutil.c32 /tftpboot/ [enter]
[root@server /usr/home/user]#

Copy file ~/syslinux-6.03/bios/com32/menu/menu.c32 to /tftpboot/ with:

[root@server /usr/home/user]# cp syslinux-6.03/bios/com32/menu/menu.c32 /tftpboot/ [enter]
[root@server /usr/home/user]#

Copy file ~/syslinux-6.03/bios/com32/menu/vesamenu.c32 to /tftpboot/ with:

[root@server /usr/home/user]# cp syslinux-6.03/bios/com32/menu/vesamenu.c32 /tftpboot/ [enter]
[root@server /usr/home/user]#

Copy file ~/syslinux-6.03/bios/com32/modules/linux.c32 to /tftpboot/ with:

[root@server /usr/home/user]# cp syslinux-6.03/bios/com32/modules/linux.c32 /tftpboot/ [enter]
[root@server /usr/home/user]#

Copy file ~/syslinux-6.03/bios/com32/elflink/ldlinux/ldlinux.c32 to /tftpboot/ with:

[root@server /usr/home/user]# cp syslinux-6.03/bios/com32/elflink/ldlinux/ldlinux.c32 /tftpboot/ [enter]
[root@server /usr/home/user]#

Copy file ~/syslinux-6.03/bios/com32/modules/reboot.c32 to /tftpboot/ with:

[root@server /usr/home/user]# cp syslinux-6.03/bios/com32/modules/reboot.c32 /tftpboot/ [enter]
[root@server /usr/home/user]#

Copy file ~/syslinux-6.03/bios/com32/chain/chain.c32 to /tftpboot/ with:

[root@server /usr/home/user]# cp syslinux-6.03/bios/com32/chain/chain.c32 /tftpboot/ [enter]
[root@server /usr/home/user]#

Copy file ~/syslinux-6.03/sample/syslinux_splash.jpg to /tftpboot/ with:

[root@server /usr/home/user]# cp syslinux-6.03/sample/syslinux_splash.jpg /tftpboot/ [enter]
[root@server /usr/home/user]#

Copy file ~/syslinux-6.03/bios/memdisk/memdisk to /tftpboot/ with:

[root@server /usr/home/user]# cp syslinux-6.03/bios/memdisk/memdisk /tftpboot/ [enter]
[root@server /usr/home/user]#

Display files in directory /tftpboot with:

[root@server /usr/home/user]# ls -l /tftpboot/ [enter]
total 1343
-rwxr-xr-x  1 root  wheel   24560 Mar  2 18:48 chain.c32
-rw-r--r--  1 root  wheel  111334 Mar  2 18:44 gpxelinux.0
drwxr-xr-x  2 root  wheel       2 Mar  2 11:37 images
-rwxr-xr-x  1 root  wheel  122308 Mar  2 18:48 ldlinux.c32
-rwxr-xr-x  1 root  wheel  186500 Mar  2 18:44 libcom32.c32
-rwxr-xr-x  1 root  wheel   24148 Mar  2 18:44 libutil.c32
-rwxr-xr-x  1 root  wheel    4660 Mar  2 18:44 linux.c32
-rw-r--r--  1 root  wheel   91550 Mar  2 18:43 lpxelinux.0
-rw-r--r--  1 root  wheel   26140 Mar  2 18:49 memdisk
-rwxr-xr-x  1 root  wheel   26596 Mar  2 18:44 menu.c32
-rw-r--r--  1 root  wheel   46909 Mar  2 18:41 pxelinux.0
drwxr-xr-x  2 root  wheel       2 Mar  2 11:37 pxelinux.cfg
-rwxr-xr-x  1 root  wheel    1376 Mar  2 18:48 reboot.c32
-rw-r--r--  1 root  wheel   56299 Mar  2 18:49 syslinux_splash.jpg
-rwxr-xr-x  1 root  wheel   27104 Mar  2 18:44 vesamenu.c32
[root@server /usr/home/user]#

Delete the extracted folder and the downloaded .xz file with;

[root@server /usr/home/user]# rm -R syslinux-6.03; rm syslinux-6.03.tar.xz [enter]
[root@server /usr/home/user]#

Configuration

Critical Tasks Password

openssl passwd command can be used to compute the MD5-based hash of password used in the PXE Boot Menus.

[root@server /usr/home/user]# openssl passwd -1 passwd
$1$./xB0ZYM$EaUHney4jC51AtxBjdln2/
[root@server /usr/home/user]#

PXE Boot Main Menu

The PXE Boot Main Menu is defined in file /tftpboot/pxelinux.cfg/default.

Create this file with:

[root@server /usr/home/user]# ee /tftpboot/pxelinux.cfg/default

…and add the following text:

DEFAULT vesamenu.c32
PROMT 0
NOESCAPE 1
TIMEOUT 300
TOTALTIMEOUT 450

MENU WIDTH 78
MENU MARGIN 1
MENU ROWS 20
MENU TIMEOUTROW 25
MENU HELPMSGROW 26

MENU BACKGROUND syslinux_splash.jpg

MENU MASTER PASSWD $1$./xB0ZYM$EaUHney4jC51AtxBjdln2/
MENU PASSPROMT Enter Password

MENU TITLE PXE Boot Main Menu - server.example.net

MENU COLOR BORDER 0 #ffffffff #ee000000 std
MENU COLOR TITLE 0 #ffffffff #ee000000 std
MENU COLOR SEL 0 #ff00ff00 #ff000000 std
MENU COLOR UNSEL 0 #ffffffff #ee000000 std
MENU COLOR PWDHEADER 0 #ff000000 #99ffffff rev
MENU COLOR PWDBORDER 0 #ff000000 #99ffffff rev
MENU COLOR PWDENTRY 0 #ff000000 #99ffffff rev
MENU COLOR HOTKEY 0 #ff00ff00 #ee000000 std
MENU COLOR HOTSEL 0 #ffffffff #85000000 std

LABEL blank
MENU LABEL

LABEL hd
MENU LABEL ^H)  Boot to Local Hard Disk
LOCALBOOT 0x80

LABEL floppy
MENU LABEL ^F)  Boot to Local Floppy Disk
LOCALBOOT 0x00

LABEL cr
MENU LABEL ^R)  Coold Reboot
COM32 reboot.c32

LABEL wr
MENU LABEL ^W)  Warm Reboot
COM32 reboot.c32
APPEND -w

LABEL next
MENU LABEL ^N)  Skip PXE Boot (Boot Next Device)
MENU DEFAULT
LOCALBOOT -1

N.B.: Remember to change MENU MASTER PASSWD and MENU TITLE PXE!

PXE Boot Sub-Menus – Top Part

PXE Boot Sub-Menus top part is defined in file tftpboot/top.cfg:

Create this file with:

[root@server /usr/home/user]# ee /tftpboot/top.cfg

…and add the following text:

DEFAULT vesamenu.c32
PROMT 0
NOESCAPE 1
TIMEOUT 300
TOTALTIMEOUT 450

MENU WIDTH 78
MENU MARGIN 1
MENU ROWS 20
MENU TIMEOUTROW 25
MENU HELPMSGROW 26

MENU BACKGROUND syslinux_splash.jpg

MENU MASTER PASSWD $1$./xB0ZYM$EaUHney4jC51AtxBjdln2/
MENU PASSPROMT Enter Password

MENU COLOR BORDER 0 #ffffffff #ee000000 std
MENU COLOR TITLE 0 #ffffffff #ee000000 std
MENU COLOR SEL 0 #ff00ff00 #ff000000 std
MENU COLOR UNSEL 0 #ffffffff #ee000000 std
MENU COLOR PWDHEADER 0 #ff000000 #99ffffff rev
MENU COLOR PWDBORDER 0 #ff000000 #99ffffff rev
MENU COLOR PWDENTRY 0 #ff000000 #99ffffff rev
MENU COLOR HOTKEY 0 #ff00ff00 #ee000000 std
MENU COLOR HOTSEL 0 #ffffffff #85000000 std

N.B.: Remember to change MENU MASTER PASSWD!

PXE Boot Sub-Menus – Bottom Part

PXE Boot Sub-Menus bottom part is defined in file tftpboot/bottom.cfg:

Create this file with:

[root@server /usr/home/user]# ee /tftpboot/bottom.cfg

…and add the following text:

LABEL blank
MENU LABEL

LABEL hd
MENU LABEL ^H)  Boot to Local Hard Disk
localboot 0x80

LABEL floppy
MENU LABEL ^F)  Boot to Local Floppy Disk
localboot 0x00

LABEL cr
MENU LABEL ^R)  Coold Reboot
COM32 reboot.c32

LABEL wr
MENU LABEL ^W)  Warm Reboot
COM32 reboot.c32
APPEND -w

LABEL  return
MENU LABEL ^R)  Return to PXE Boot Main Menu
MENU DEFAULT
KERNEL vesamenu.c32
APPEND ~

Change file modes

Change file modes for all files in directory /tftpboot with:

[root@server ~]# chmod -R 755 /tftpboot [enter]
[root@server /usr/home/user]#

The sub-menus in this example will be named tftpboot/f01.cfg, tftpboot/f02.cfg,… and any files used in the sub-menus will be stored in directory named tftpboot/f01, tftpboot/f02, …

OpenSSL – Open Secure Sockets Layer

Description

The OpenSSL Project is a collaborative effort to develop a robust, commercial-grade, full-featured, and Open Source toolkit implementing the Secure Sockets Layer (SSL v2/v3) and Transport Layer Security (TLS v1) protocols with full-strength cryptography world-wide. The project is managed by a worldwide community of volunteers that use the Internet to communicate, plan, and develop the OpenSSL tookit and its related documentation.

OpenSSL is based on the excellent SSLeay library developed by Eric A. Young and Tim J. Hudson. The OpenSSL toolkit is licensed under an Apache-style licence, which basically means that you are free to get and use it for commercial and non-commercial purposes subject to some simple license conditions.

WWW: http://www.openssl.org/.

Preparation for Installation

Start PuTTY on a Windows PC, Terminal on a Mac or similar terminal application on a Linux PC.

In this example Terminal on a Mac is used.

Open a remote SSH session to the server with:

Mac:~ user$ ssh user@192.168.1.4 [enter]

N.B.: Replace user@192.168.1.4 with User ID and IP Address on Your server!

[user@server ~]$

Enable superuser privileges with:

[user@server ~]$ sudo -s [enter]
Password: <-- passwd [enter]
[root@server /usr/home/user]#

N.B.: Enter user password, not the root password!

Installation

Install the OpenSSL port with;

[root@server /usr/home/user]# pkg install openssl [enter]
Updating FreeBSD repository catalogue...
FreeBSD repository is up to date.
All repositories are up to date.
The following 1 package(s) will be affected (of 0 checked):

New packages to be INSTALLED:
        openssl: 1.0.2l,1

Number of packages to be installed: 1

The process will require 12 MiB more space.
3 MiB to be downloaded.

Proceed with this action? [y/N]: y [enter]
[1/1] Fetching openssl-1.0.2l,1.txz: 100%    3 MiB   1.5MB/s    00:02
Checking integrity... done (0 conflicting)
[1/1] Installing openssl-1.0.2l,1...
Extracting openssl-1.0.2l,1: 100%
Message from openssl-1.0.2l,1:
Edit /usr/local/openssl/openssl.cnf to fit your needs.
[root@server /usr/home/user]#

Configuration

Disable use of the old version of openssl in directory /usr/bin/ with:

[root@server /usr/home/user]# mv /usr/bin/openssl /usr/bin/openssl.default [enter]
[root@server /usr/home/user]#

Create a symbolic link to enable the use the new version of openssl with:

[root@server /usr/home/user]# ln -s /usr/local/bin/openssl /usr/bin/ [enter]
[root@server /usr/home/user]#

Edit /usr/local/openssl/openssl.cnf to fit your needs with:

[root@server /usr/home/user]# ee /usr/local/openssl/openssl.cnf [enter]

.
[ req_distinguished_name ]
countryName                     = Country Name (2 letter code)
countryName_default             = SE
countryName_min                 = 2
countryName_max                 = 2

stateOrProvinceName             = State or Province Name (full name)
stateOrProvinceName_default     = Example State

localityName                    = Locality Name (eg, city)
localityName_default            = Example City

0.organizationName              = Organization Name (eg, company)
0.organizationName_default      = Example Company

# we can do this but it is not needed normally :-)
#1.organizationName             = Second Organization Name (eg, company)
#1.organizationName_default     = World Wide Web Pty Ltd

organizationalUnitName          = Organizational Unit Name (eg, section)
organizationalUnitName_default  = Example Unit

commonName                      = Common Name (e.g. server FQDN or YOUR name)
commonName_max                  = 64

emailAddress                    = Email Address
emailAddress_max                = 64
emailAddress_default            = your.mail@example.net

# SET-ex3                       = SET extension number 3
.

CA requires some setup stuff to be done before it can be used. To makes things easier run script:

[root@server /usr/home/user]# /usr/local/openssl/misc/CA.sh -newca [enter]
[root@server /usr/home/user]#

Generating Certificates

If a signature from a CA is not required, a self-signed certificate can be created. First, generate the RSA key:

[root@server /usr/home/user]# openssl genrsa -rand -genkey -out cert.key 2048 [enter]
0 semi-random bytes loaded
Generating RSA private key, 2048 bit long modulus
................................................+++
......+++
e is 65537 (0x10001)
[root@server /usr/home/user]#

Use this key to create a self-signed certificate valid for filve years. Follow the usual prompts for creating a certificate:

[root@server /usr/home/user]# openssl req -new -x509 -days 1825 -key cert.key -out cert.crt -sha256 [enter]
You are about to be asked to enter information that will be incorporated
into your certificate request.
What you are about to enter is what is called a Distinguished Name or a DN.
There are quite a few fields but you can leave some blank
For some fields there will be a default value,
If you enter '.', the field will be left blank.
-----
Country Name (2 letter code) [SE]: [enter]
State or Province Name (full name) [Example State]: [enter]
Locality Name (eg, city) [Example City]: [enter]
Organization Name (eg, company) [Example Company]: [enter]
Organizational Unit Name (eg, section) [Example Unit]: [enter]
Common Name (e.g. server FQDN or YOUR name) []:server.example.net [enter]
Email Address [your.mail@example.net]: [enter]
[root@server /usr/home/user]#

Two new files has been created in the current directory: a private key file cert.key, and the certificate itself, cert.crt. These files should be placed in a directory, preferably under /usr/local/etc/ssl/. Permissions of 0700 are appropriate for these files and can be set using chmod.

[root@server /usr/home/user]# mv cert.* /usr/local/etc/ssl/ [enter]
[root@server /usr/home/user]#

[root@server /usr/home/user]# chmod 0700 /usr/local/etc/ssl/cert.* [enter]
[root@server /usr/home/user]#