[CentOS] Adding new drivers to the pxeboot initrd/kernel

Wed May 28 23:05:11 UTC 2008
Clint Dilks <clintd at scms.waikato.ac.nz>


Drew Weaver wrote:
> Drew Weaver wrote:
>   
>>   Does anyone have a howto or documentation on how to add new drivers to
>> the pxeboot initrd/kernel? It appears that although some newer dells
>> (t300) have Broadcom NetXtreme IIs in them, 4.6 won't recognize them for
>> some reason (possibly because they're dual port?)
>>     
>
> You can use a driver disk hosted on either the install media or a usb
> key / floppy disk / cd-r
> ---
>
> Unfortunately we do our installs via PXE remotely, so it would be difficult, there is no way to modify the pxeboot initrd?
>
> -Drew
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>
>   

Hi this is definitely possible, we have had to do similar.

What I would suggest is that you install one system using a driver disk 
or similar so that you have a working system to use to help identify 
changes needed to your initrd.

There is a lot of good documentation about modifying initrd's its just 
that some of it needs to be adjusted slightly for newer Red Hat based 
systems.

Try
http://sial.org/howto/linux/initrd/
http://wiki.openvz.org/Modifying_initrd_image
http://forums12.itrc.hp.com/service/forums/questionanswer.do?admit=109447627+1212015469230+28353475&threadId=1158742 
<http://forums12.itrc.hp.com/service/forums/questionanswer.do?admit=109447627+1212015469230+28353475&threadId=1158742>

And remember just because the initrd used for PXE Booting is modified 
doesn't mean that the initd on the installed systems is modified as 
well.  I hope this helps

Good Luck :)