11:57 a.m.
All,
I managed to get PXE booting working with Cobbler (I'm using DHCP outside of
Cobbler)...
I notice when I run "cobbler sync," the generated /tftpboot/pxelnux.cfg/default
does not contain any system records I have defined. I spent most of yesterday looking
through the code and see in pxegen.py only profiles and images are listed. I managed to
hack away a little bit to get my system records to emit - and its mostly working now for
installations...
Question I have is, were system records purposefully omitted? Or am I missing something?
I'm wanting to have all my systems listed in the PXE menu and be able to choose and
install just like if I generate the iso file and burn to CD...
Thanks,
Flossy
--
Make It So Number One
1:14 p.m.
On Mon, Nov 28, 2011 at 10:57 AM, Scot Floess <sfloess(a)redhat.com> wrote:
All,
I managed to get PXE booting working with Cobbler (I'm using DHCP outside of
Cobbler)...
I notice when I run "cobbler sync," the generated
/tftpboot/pxelnux.cfg/default does not contain any system records I have
defined. I spent most of yesterday looking through the code and see in
pxegen.py only profiles and images are listed. I managed to hack away a
little bit to get my system records to emit - and its mostly working now for
installations...
Question I have is, were system records purposefully omitted? Or am I
missing something? I'm wanting to have all my systems listed in the PXE
menu and be able to choose and install just like if I generate the iso file
and burn to CD...
Thanks,
Flossy
Yup, How would I include "external" pxeboot options such as a couple
OpenBSD flavours* - currently I maintain two TFTP instances and
manually launch the one I need at the time - I think I'm looking for
an 'include' function that survives the cobbler sync to chain in the
OBSD pxe options. Or help with the cobbler config option I'm missing.
thx
*I'm not worried about scripted installs here, just picking the right
pxe boot file
just FYI http://openbsd.org/faq/faq6.html#PXE
1:23 p.m.
Yup, How would I include "external" pxeboot options such as
a couple
OpenBSD flavours* - currently I maintain two TFTP instances and
manually launch the one I need at the time - I think I'm looking for
an 'include' function that survives the cobbler sync to chain in the
OBSD pxe options. Or help with the cobbler config option I'm missing.
thx
It would be nice if I could spell out which systems I want in the menu - similarly to what
one can do to build an iso. I'm very new to PXE booting (well setting it up anyway) -
but if I understand you correctly there are options you hand need to hand in? If so, how
do you do that now via Cobbler? Or do you manually edit the default file?
*I'm not worried about scripted installs here, just picking the
right
pxe boot file
just FYI http://openbsd.org/faq/faq6.html#PXE
See my issue is, I was doing an install - then running KOAN against the install
machine...I just wanted to not do that (aka save a step and one less install)...
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2:16 p.m.
Add the MAC or IP of the system, the menu entry is unneccessary and then you can also do
useful things like reinstall the box on next boot, without any manual selection from a
console.
-- Michael
On Nov 28, 2011, at 2:23 PM, Scot Floess <sfloess(a)redhat.com> wrote:
> Yup, How would I include "external" pxeboot options
such as a couple
> OpenBSD flavours* - currently I maintain two TFTP instances and
> manually launch the one I need at the time - I think I'm looking for
> an 'include' function that survives the cobbler sync to chain in the
> OBSD pxe options. Or help with the cobbler config option I'm missing.
> thx
It would be nice if I could spell out which systems I want in the menu - similarly to
what one can do to build an iso. I'm very new to PXE booting (well setting it up
anyway) - but if I understand you correctly there are options you hand need to hand in?
If so, how do you do that now via Cobbler? Or do you manually edit the default file?
> *I'm not worried about scripted installs here, just picking the right
> pxe boot file
> just FYI http://openbsd.org/faq/faq6.html#PXE
See my issue is, I was doing an install - then running KOAN against the install
machine...I just wanted to not do that (aka save a step and one less install)...
> _______________________________________________
> cobbler mailing list
> cobbler(a)lists.fedorahosted.org
> https://fedorahosted.org/mailman/listinfo/cobbler
>
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2:52 p.m.
Michael,
Hey welcome back! And thanks for the response :)
I am going to ask a really silly question. When you say add the mac - do you mean via
cobbler system add ? And if so, when I PXE boot, it'll see that entry and install
OK?
----- Original Message -----
From: "Michael DeHaan" <michael.dehaan(a)gmail.com>
To: "cobbler mailing list" <cobbler(a)lists.fedorahosted.org>
Cc: "cobbler mailing list" <cobbler(a)lists.fedorahosted.org>
Sent: Monday, November 28, 2011 3:16:43 PM
Subject: Re: PXE Booting systems
Add the MAC or IP of the system, the menu entry is unneccessary and
then you can also do useful things like reinstall the box on next
boot, without any manual selection from a console.
-- Michael
On Nov 28, 2011, at 2:23 PM, Scot Floess <sfloess(a)redhat.com> wrote:
>> Yup, How would I include "external" pxeboot options such as a
>> couple
>> OpenBSD flavours* - currently I maintain two TFTP instances and
>> manually launch the one I need at the time - I think I'm looking
>> for
>> an 'include' function that survives the cobbler sync to chain in
>> the
>> OBSD pxe options. Or help with the cobbler config option I'm
>> missing.
>> thx
>
> It would be nice if I could spell out which systems I want in the
> menu - similarly to what one can do to build an iso. I'm very new
> to PXE booting (well setting it up anyway) - but if I understand
> you correctly there are options you hand need to hand in? If so,
> how do you do that now via Cobbler? Or do you manually edit the
> default file?
>
>> *I'm not worried about scripted installs here, just picking the
>> right
>> pxe boot file
>> just FYI http://openbsd.org/faq/faq6.html#PXE
>
> See my issue is, I was doing an install - then running KOAN against
> the install machine...I just wanted to not do that (aka save a
> step and one less install)...
>
>> _______________________________________________
>> cobbler mailing list
>> cobbler(a)lists.fedorahosted.org
>> https://fedorahosted.org/mailman/listinfo/cobbler
>>
> _______________________________________________
> cobbler mailing list
> cobbler(a)lists.fedorahosted.org
> https://fedorahosted.org/mailman/listinfo/cobbler
_______________________________________________
cobbler mailing list
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6:13 p.m.
On Mon, Nov 28, 2011 at 3:52 PM, Scot Floess <sfloess(a)redhat.com> wrote:
Michael,
Hey welcome back! And thanks for the response :)
I am going to ask a really silly question. When you say add the mac - do you mean via
cobbler system add ? And if so, when I PXE boot, it'll see that entry and install OK?
cobbler system [add|edit] --name=foo --mac=AA:BB:CC:DD:EE:FF
-netboot-enabled=1 [...]
If the system is set in BIOS to PXE first in the boot order, it will
reinstall at next boot and then toggle the netboot enabled flag post
installation such that it will not reinstall
until netboot-enabled=1 is set again. This requires pxe_just_once to
be set in settings.
If the system is NOT set to PXE first in the boot order, you'll have
to hit F11 or whatever your BIOS requires to pick the boot device.
PXE to a direct system record can technically work via IP instead of
MAC but that is not recommended for what should be obvious reasons --
IPs can change easily for various reasons
and you don't want arbitrary systems getting reinstalled.
In any event, no need for menus. It would get unmanageable with
large system counts (scroooooollll.....), and I'd really want to
encourage everyone using profiles as much as possible, with systems
as just the "glue" to make a system "be" a profile, plus whatever
bare
minimum info about it's power management or special kernel options,
etc.
--Michael
----- Original Message -----
> From: "Michael DeHaan" <michael.dehaan(a)gmail.com>
> To: "cobbler mailing list" <cobbler(a)lists.fedorahosted.org>
> Cc: "cobbler mailing list" <cobbler(a)lists.fedorahosted.org>
> Sent: Monday, November 28, 2011 3:16:43 PM
> Subject: Re: PXE Booting systems
>
> Add the MAC or IP of the system, the menu entry is unneccessary and
> then you can also do useful things like reinstall the box on next
> boot, without any manual selection from a console.
>
> -- Michael
>
> On Nov 28, 2011, at 2:23 PM, Scot Floess <sfloess(a)redhat.com> wrote:
>
> >> Yup, How would I include "external" pxeboot options such as a
> >> couple
> >> OpenBSD flavours* - currently I maintain two TFTP instances and
> >> manually launch the one I need at the time - I think I'm looking
> >> for
> >> an 'include' function that survives the cobbler sync to chain in
> >> the
> >> OBSD pxe options. Or help with the cobbler config option I'm
> >> missing.
> >> thx
> >
> > It would be nice if I could spell out which systems I want in the
> > menu - similarly to what one can do to build an iso. I'm very new
> > to PXE booting (well setting it up anyway) - but if I understand
> > you correctly there are options you hand need to hand in? If so,
> > how do you do that now via Cobbler? Or do you manually edit the
> > default file?
> >
> >> *I'm not worried about scripted installs here, just picking the
> >> right
> >> pxe boot file
> >> just FYI http://openbsd.org/faq/faq6.html#PXE
> >
> > See my issue is, I was doing an install - then running KOAN against
> > the install machine...I just wanted to not do that (aka save a
> > step and one less install)...
> >
> >> _______________________________________________
> >> cobbler mailing list
> >> cobbler(a)lists.fedorahosted.org
> >> https://fedorahosted.org/mailman/listinfo/cobbler
> >>
> > _______________________________________________
> > cobbler mailing list
> > cobbler(a)lists.fedorahosted.org
> > https://fedorahosted.org/mailman/listinfo/cobbler
> _______________________________________________
> cobbler mailing list
> cobbler(a)lists.fedorahosted.org
> https://fedorahosted.org/mailman/listinfo/cobbler
>
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6:57 p.m.
On Mon, Nov 28, 2011 at 6:13 PM, Michael DeHaan
<michael.dehaan(a)gmail.com> wrote:
On Mon, Nov 28, 2011 at 3:52 PM, Scot Floess
<sfloess(a)redhat.com> wrote:
In any event, no need for menus. It would get unmanageable with
large system counts (scroooooollll.....), and I'd really want to
encourage everyone using profiles as much as possible, with systems
as just the "glue" to make a system "be" a profile, plus whatever
bare
minimum info about it's power management or special kernel options,
etc.
A few months back, someone requested a feature that would add
hierarchical menus, which would solve the issue of having a ton of
systems but no MAC addresses. It's on my todo list, as I do think it
would be a helpful feature for both PXE booting and ISOs.
7:06 p.m.
++ for hierarchial menus, wanted to do this for a long time, though I
*have* seen PXE systems basically implode with very large menu
configs.
I think the initial reason for not doing it was also that, at the
time, we had to contend with older syslinuxes where they were buggy.
I think in those
cases we should just tell folks to pull down a newer one, and not
require that the one in the distro be used at all.
Folks could have tons of systems (tens of thousands) and we'd have to
test that to find the breaking points, and to see if there's a menu
size at which things stop working.
If you did systems, you could partition based on the first few letters, like
systems/a/aa/aardvark
Basically for non-systems you could do something like:
cobbler profile edit --name=bar --pxe-menu-path="alpha/beta/gamma"
with the default menu path being "" for root.
Though it does open up the case of being able to easily install the
wrong system record on a system, so I'd question why you would do it
interactively if you could avoid it. And possibly some
trivial-to-exploit security tricks, where you could easily clone what
a system was supposed to get in a bit too easy of a way (though it
could be argued any attempt to defeat this are futile due to the
natures of the protocols involved anyway).
The main point is doing a lot of system customization is really doing
it wrong, IMHO, as ultimately profiles should be driving something
like puppet external nodes for more advanced config.... and if you
have PXE, you can skip the menu navigation. And if you don't.... then
you didn't get into the menu to begin with.
--Michael
On Mon, Nov 28, 2011 at 7:57 PM, James Cammarata <jimi(a)sngx.net> wrote:
On Mon, Nov 28, 2011 at 6:13 PM, Michael DeHaan
<michael.dehaan(a)gmail.com> wrote:
> On Mon, Nov 28, 2011 at 3:52 PM, Scot Floess <sfloess(a)redhat.com> wrote:
> In any event, no need for menus. It would get unmanageable with
> large system counts (scroooooollll.....), and I'd really want to
> encourage everyone using profiles as much as possible, with systems
> as just the "glue" to make a system "be" a profile, plus whatever
bare
> minimum info about it's power management or special kernel options,
> etc.
A few months back, someone requested a feature that would add
hierarchical menus, which would solve the issue of having a ton of
systems but no MAC addresses. It's on my todo list, as I do think it
would be a helpful feature for both PXE booting and ISOs.
_______________________________________________
cobbler mailing list
cobbler(a)lists.fedorahosted.org
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7:33 a.m.
Michael,
Thanks for the response! I'm not sure what I didn't understand - but I "get
it" now! I hadn't considered denoting the MAC address...and clearly didn't
RTFM!
Anyway, this worked for me - perfectly! I really see the value and now that I understand
it, having to use the menu is simply not necessary (nor desirable now that I see it work
in action)...
Thanks so much!
Flossy
----- Original Message -----
From: "Michael DeHaan" <michael.dehaan(a)gmail.com>
To: "cobbler mailing list" <cobbler(a)lists.fedorahosted.org>
Sent: Monday, November 28, 2011 7:13:28 PM
Subject: Re: PXE Booting systems
On Mon, Nov 28, 2011 at 3:52 PM, Scot Floess <sfloess(a)redhat.com>
wrote:
> Michael,
>
> Hey welcome back! And thanks for the response :)
>
> I am going to ask a really silly question. When you say add the
> mac - do you mean via cobbler system add ? And if so, when I PXE
> boot, it'll see that entry and install OK?
cobbler system [add|edit] --name=foo --mac=AA:BB:CC:DD:EE:FF
-netboot-enabled=1 [...]
If the system is set in BIOS to PXE first in the boot order, it will
reinstall at next boot and then toggle the netboot enabled flag post
installation such that it will not reinstall
until netboot-enabled=1 is set again. This requires pxe_just_once
to
be set in settings.
If the system is NOT set to PXE first in the boot order, you'll have
to hit F11 or whatever your BIOS requires to pick the boot device.
PXE to a direct system record can technically work via IP instead of
MAC but that is not recommended for what should be obvious reasons --
IPs can change easily for various reasons
and you don't want arbitrary systems getting reinstalled.
In any event, no need for menus. It would get unmanageable with
large system counts (scroooooollll.....), and I'd really want to
encourage everyone using profiles as much as possible, with systems
as just the "glue" to make a system "be" a profile, plus whatever
bare
minimum info about it's power management or special kernel options,
etc.
--Michael
>
> ----- Original Message -----
>> From: "Michael DeHaan" <michael.dehaan(a)gmail.com>
>> To: "cobbler mailing list" <cobbler(a)lists.fedorahosted.org>
>> Cc: "cobbler mailing list" <cobbler(a)lists.fedorahosted.org>
>> Sent: Monday, November 28, 2011 3:16:43 PM
>> Subject: Re: PXE Booting systems
>>
>> Add the MAC or IP of the system, the menu entry is unneccessary
>> and
>> then you can also do useful things like reinstall the box on next
>> boot, without any manual selection from a console.
>>
>> -- Michael
>>
>> On Nov 28, 2011, at 2:23 PM, Scot Floess <sfloess(a)redhat.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>> >> Yup, How would I include "external" pxeboot options such as
a
>> >> couple
>> >> OpenBSD flavours* - currently I maintain two TFTP instances and
>> >> manually launch the one I need at the time - I think I'm
>> >> looking
>> >> for
>> >> an 'include' function that survives the cobbler sync to chain
>> >> in
>> >> the
>> >> OBSD pxe options. Or help with the cobbler config option I'm
>> >> missing.
>> >> thx
>> >
>> > It would be nice if I could spell out which systems I want in
>> > the
>> > menu - similarly to what one can do to build an iso. I'm very
>> > new
>> > to PXE booting (well setting it up anyway) - but if I understand
>> > you correctly there are options you hand need to hand in? If
>> > so,
>> > how do you do that now via Cobbler? Or do you manually edit the
>> > default file?
>> >
>> >> *I'm not worried about scripted installs here, just picking the
>> >> right
>> >> pxe boot file
>> >> just FYI http://openbsd.org/faq/faq6.html#PXE
>> >
>> > See my issue is, I was doing an install - then running KOAN
>> > against
>> > the install machine...I just wanted to not do that (aka save a
>> > step and one less install)...
>> >
>> >> _______________________________________________
>> >> cobbler mailing list
>> >> cobbler(a)lists.fedorahosted.org
>> >> https://fedorahosted.org/mailman/listinfo/cobbler
>> >>
>> > _______________________________________________
>> > cobbler mailing list
>> > cobbler(a)lists.fedorahosted.org
>> > https://fedorahosted.org/mailman/listinfo/cobbler
>> _______________________________________________
>> cobbler mailing list
>> cobbler(a)lists.fedorahosted.org
>> https://fedorahosted.org/mailman/listinfo/cobbler
>>
> _______________________________________________
> cobbler mailing list
> cobbler(a)lists.fedorahosted.org
> https://fedorahosted.org/mailman/listinfo/cobbler
>
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8 comments
4 participants
participants (4)
-
Ed - 0x1b, Inc. -
James Cammarata -
Michael DeHaan -
Scot Floess