[CentOS] how to debug pxe boot problems

Tue Apr 13 09:17:36 UTC 2010
lhecking at users.sourceforge.net <lhecking at users.sourceforge.net>

Rudi Ahlers writes:
> Hi all,
> 
> I'm  trying to get a pxeboot server up and running, according to the
> instructions on the WIKI (http://wiki.centos.org/HowTos/PXE/PXE_Setup
> & http://wiki.centos.org/HowTos/PXE/PXE_Setup/Menus)
> 
> Here's my /tftpboot/pxepxelinux.cfg/default :
> 
> 
> default menu.c32
> prompt 1
> timeout 300
> ONTIMEOUT local
> 
> MENU TITLE PXE Menu
> 
> label Dos Bootdisk
>         MENU LABEL ^Dos bootdisk
>         kernel memdisk
>         append initrd=images/622c.img
> 
> LABEL CentOS 5 x86_64
>         MENU LABEL ^CentOS 5 x86_64
>         kernel images/centos/5/x86_64/vmlinuz
>         append initrd=images/centos/5/x86_64/initrd.img
> ramdisk_size=100000 ksdevice=eth0 ip=dhcp url --url
> http://192.168.2.250/linux/centos/5/os/x86_64
> 
> label linux
>         kernel vmlinuz
>         append initrd=initrd.img ramdisk_size=9216 noapic acpi=of
> 
> 
> Then, here's the layout for the CentOS 5 image:
> 
> [root at intranet /]# ll /tftpboot/images/centos/5/
> total 0
> lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 35 Apr 13 07:20 x86_64 ->
> /home/www/linux/centos/5/os/x86_64/
> 
> 
> As you can see, I linked the folder to a Linux image on the hard
> drive. Apache then advertises that folder on the LAN as follows:
> http://192.168.2.250/linux/centos/5/os/x86_64 and I can browse the
> folders via Firefox.
> 
> Yet when I bootup a PC in PXE mode, it doesn't actually load the
> CentOS image. I can see the PXE Menu and choose between "Dos
> Bootdisk", "CentOS 5 x86_64" and "linux" (which I setup as a test).
> When I load "Dos Bootdisk", I get an error:
> 
> 
> Loading memdisk....
> Could not find ramdisk image:images/622c.img
> boot :
> 
> 
> 
> So, it's reading the configuration, but not loading the CentOS boot
> image. /var/log/messages doesn't give my any errors on this (yes I
> know how to read /var/log/messages)
> Does anyone know how to get pxeboot to output debug messages to
> syslog?  OR,what am I doing wrong?  The tutorials I got on the net are
> rather vague on this. And please don't tell me to use Cobbler, I
> already tried that but no one one this lists supports it.

 You need to have the kernel and initrd under the tftpboot directory,
 i.e. not symlinked. I presume /home is automounted? Your boot environment
 doesn't know about autofs.




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