What is PXE?

PXE stands Preboot Execution Environment. Usually, to install a computer, you would make use of an installation CD, or a bootable USB drive, but in a datacenter, where you have hundreds of computers/servers, it is not very viable to install each server individually using a USB drive. This is where PXE comes in. A PXE boot allows computers to be installed via a network. PXE makes use of DHCP and TFTP protocols, which are standard across all devices. On the client side, the only requirement is a PXE enabled NIC. One can also customize the operating system that is installed on the clients with a few changes on the PXE servers, and that is why it is one of the most popular choices for mass-installation and deployments of operating systems on servers.

Step-by-step guide

Assumption: You already have a DHCP server on your network which allows you to set PXE boot parameters. If not, you can install a DHCP server on the PXE server using a guide online.

  1. Install the required packages
    sudo apt-get install inetutils-inetd tftpd-hpa apache2
  2. Edit the /etc/default/tftpd-hpa file and add the following lines at the bottom to enable the TFTP server:
    RUN_DAEMON="yes"
OPTIONS="-l -s /var/lib/tftpboot"
  3. Edit the /etc/inetd.conf file and add the following line at the bottom:
    udp   wait   root   /usr/sbin/in.tftpd /usr/sbin/in.tftpd -s /var/lib/tftpboot

If you are using IPv6, change udp to upd4
4. Restart the TFTP service
sudo systemctl restart tftpd-hpa
5. Make a Ubuntu directory in your Apache root
mkdir /var/www/html/ubuntu
6. Mount the Server Image
mount -o loop /path/to/ubuntu/iso
7. Copy all the netboot file to the TFTP root
sudo cp -fr /mnt/install/netboot/* /var/lib/tftpboot/
8. Copy all the Ubuntu image files to the Ubuntu directory
sudo cp -fr /mnt/* /var/www/html/ubuntu/
9. Change permission of the default menu file, just in case (I experienced issues)

    chown root:root /var/lib/tftpboot/pxelinux.cfg/default
    chmod 777 /var/lib/tftpboot/pxelinux.cfg/default
  1. Add the following lines to the /var/lib/tftpboot/pxelinux.cfg/default file
    label <Enter your label here>
        kernel ubuntu-installer/amd64/linux
        append ks=http://<IP Address>/ks.cfg vga=normal initrd=ubuntu-installer/amd64/initrd.gz
        ramdisk_size=16432 root=/dev/rd/0 rw --
  1. To generate a kickstart file, you can use system-config-kickstart package, which offers a GUI to create a customized kickstart file, or you can find documentation online
  2. Ensure that on our DHCP server, bootp options are enabled, the PXE server is set to the next-server, and the file name is pxelinux.0

You should now have a working PXE Server serving an Ubuntu image!