Ever fumbled around your house looking for a Linux CD, but you can’t find it? Ever suspected that your ram was going bad, but you didn’t have a way to test it? Ever needed to backup files on a computer that had a dead and broken operating system? A solution to all these problems is a super cool tool called PXE booting. PXE booting allows you to load alternative operating systems over the network, without the need for cds, cdroms, etc!
Things you can do with a PXE server
Sound like something that you could benefit from? Setting up your own PXE boot environment is easy and Fun! Check out my presentation and then later my wiki page for notes, commands, and configuration snippets to get your own setup going.
Hey Kyle,
Great PXE post – PXE is definitely great to set up at home as you suggested, and when you need to you can then easily PXE boot any problematic system for testing, etc.
I have a similar how to for setting up PXE at http://timelordz.com/wiki/index.php/PXE_Boot_Server that might help too.
Once guys get familiar with this at home, they might find these two tools to be extremely helpful in a work environment where you want to install Linux and Windows via PXE:
For installing Linux via PXE:
== https://fedorahosted.org/cobbler/ ==
(Cobbler is AWESOME – very easy to install as packages are readily available for it. Easy setup. It sets up the PXE menus for you automatically. You can use it to install just about any flavor of Linux distro, but not BSD. You can of course also put things like memetest, RIP, and even Live CDs on it. You can get Cobbler set up in about :30 or so on a system, even at home if running CentOS / Red Hat.) Note: Download the newer version from the EPEL testing repo, it is actually fully stable, but you have to get it from testing.
A similar tool to Cobbler is spacewalk, which actually includes Cobbler. It allows for more complete management of Red Hat systems.
http://spacewalk.redhat.com/
== For installing Windows vix PXE: ==
http://opsi.org/
(OPSI is a bit tricky to get set up. I have wiki on it available at:
http://timelordz.com/wiki/index.php/OPSI_Install_Manager
that might help with some common snags. Once set up it works extremely well and allows you to very easily add new drivers which the Windows installer with then automatically detect when installing. No more slip streaming new Windows install CDs all the time! It also allows you to package applications and push them to your Windows machines.
Keep up the great posts man!
Pete