pxe booting

[terry1966]

going to be a long explanation of what the problem is and what i want to do, so please bear with me.

 

my mate wants me to install an os of some type on an old laptop he got given, the problem is the dvd drive doesn't work and it won't boot from usb.

it does have a hard drive listed in bios but no idea what if anything is on it.

it does have pxe network boot tho.

 

so what i want to do is set up a pxe boot server with one of my suse machines with 3 options.

 

1:- run a suse kde live cd, (so i can check what's on the hard drive and save anything that may need to be saved before installing anything to it.)

2:- install xp pro os (that's the key it has on it.)

3:- install suse 12.1 os

 

now to make things easier (i hope.) the laptop and pc are going to be directly connected to each other so it doesn't interfere/get confused with my dhcp router or other pc that's running a ftp server already.

 

now i assume i'm going to need to setup a dhcp server and ftp server on my suse pc and mounting all 3 iso's somewhere so they can be used before connecting the laptop and then booting it, but as usual my googling skills leave a lot to be desired and can't i find a really good guide for how to go about setting everything up.

 

so if anyone's done this before or know of a good guide to follow i'd be grateful for the help.

 

 

[Bruce]

Well to be honest it is all laid out pretty well on the opensuse site

 

http://doc.opensuse.org/documentation/html/openSUSE/opensuse-reference/cha.deployment.remoteinst.html

 

https://en.opensuse.org/SDB:PXE_boot_installation

[terry1966]

well to be honest those guides are useless..

 

i must be getting stupid in my old age but i just can't get this pxeboot working at all.

 

for example even setting up dhcp, if i'd done it correctly i'd have thought there would be an entry in the log showing the laptop was at least getting an ip assigned but nope nothing shows up there.

 

another example is it says to make repo's for install media and will configure the servers automatically using yast2-instserver, well it wouldn't make one with the livecd which is my first choice of boot medium so i can check the hard drive, ok i thought i'd make one with the dvd and at least i'd know the pxeboot was working ok and abort the install, but even after making that and copying all the needed files from that to the srv/tftpboot folder still nothing on the client laptop.

 

this process can't be as hard as i'm making it out to be, but for some reason i just can't get it working.

 

i'm so frustrated at the moment i'm even thinking of installing and booting windows vista to try.

 

going to take a break from it for now after spending 9 hrs on something i bet most people would get up and running in about 30 minutes.

 

[Bruce]

You expect the pxe system just to magically discover all of this and do it alone?

 

Have you pointed it to the boot medium? https://en.opensuse.org/SDB:PXE_boot_installation#Booting_PXE

Edited October 13, 2013 by Bruce

[terry1966]

 

You expect the pxe system just to magically discover all of this and do it alone?

yes!!

 

 

 

to be honest bruce at the moment my brain is so confused i can't say anything is setup correctly.

 

i setup the dchp.config file to point to the tftp server yes.

 

what makes it so frustrating is i have no way of knowing where things may be going wrong.

the laptop starts up and starts the pxeboot process but nothing stays on the screen long enough to read and then your just left with a black screen.

then on the server pc the dhcp log doesn't even show anything trying to connect to it.

no idea where the tftp log is to see if anything tried connecting to that either.

 

i know this pxeboot can't be that complicated to setup but my brain can't see the forest because of the trees at the moment.

 

[Bruce]

dhcp and tftp allowed in your firewall?

[terry1966]

yes and just to be sure i even switched off the firewall to test.

 

the 2 machines are connected directly lan port to lan port with no router or internet connection to interfere.

 

busy today so will have another try tuesday.

 

[nigsy]

 

 

the 2 machines are connected directly lan port to lan port with no router or internet connection to interfere.

 

 

 

 

Terry; I know this is a stupid suggestion, but are you using a crossover cable? The older motherboard in the laptop may not support a direct LAN connection, hence why it can't pick up the IP??

[terry1966]

not a stupid question nigsy, i thought of that but assume the newer lan port would be able to communicate with the older laptop regardless and anyway i don't own any crossover cables and not going to make one out of the few cables i do own.

 

not sure when lan ports became "intelligent" so there was no longer a need for a crossover cable, far as i'm aware it was the older dsl ports that needed crossover cables and lan ports have always been able to be used without them, may be wrong on that tho.

 

so yes the problem could well be i need a crossover cable, but think the problem is more than likely my configuration somewhere. brains not been working so great recently and i confuse myself a lot.

 

Edited October 14, 2013 by terry1966