[TomB19]

I've been running PXE boot minimyth for several years. I have a few front ends and they all have nVidia GPUs. Needless to say, the server is in place and I'm familiar with the PXE boot process.

Where can I find the image for this configration? I'm talking about the image that will be bootstrapped by pxelinux.0.

I get the feeling I'm missing something. I've never tried XBMC before but it looks like it might be a nice system for me. I don't need Myth as I don't watch TV anymore. I just want a media server. Myth v24 is good enough, although I really don't like MythMusic. I'm hoping XBMC will have better music library support with search, etc.

I've found several documents on setting up a server. I don't need that. I can't find client images for pxelinux.0 and I've checked the Wiki and searched the web quite a bit.

Thanks for any help!

[TomB19]

I have some progress on a PXE boot XBMCbuntu system. Current status is that I can't get NFS to work on xbmc or geexbox (tried 2.0 and a couple of dev releases). Also, settings are not persistent with the current config (I suspect a permissions issue). I'll post the relevant config information.

Server = Ubuntu 12.4.
tftp server = tftp-hpa
dns = bind9
dhcp = isc-dhcp-server

tftp path = /var/lib/tftpboot
pxelinux.0 path = /var/lib/tftpboot/boot/pxelinux.0 ; note: I use tftp for a bunch of stuff so I've isolated the PXE boot stuff in it's own directory on the tftp server



The dns and dhcp code is pretty obvious and well documented so I won't post it. If someone wishes these snippets, let me know. Nothing new there, though.

pxelinux.0 - I downloaded the latest. It seems to have better NFS root support than the three year old version I struggled with for half a day.

Download syslinux

memdisk -> I couldn't get it to work with XBMC. Apparently it doesn't work with most live linux distributions for architectural reasons. Still, it's super handy for PXE booting other stuff.


/etc/exports

/var/lib/tftpboot/boot/xbmcbuntu-11.0 172.16.1.0/24(rw,no_root_squash,no_subtree_check,no_all_squash)

/var/lib/tftpboot/boot/pxelinux.cfg/default

DEFAULT XBMC

LABEL XBMC
KERNEL xbmcbuntu-11.0/casper/vmlinuz
APPEND boot=casper netboot=nfs nfsroot=172.16.1.67:/var/lib/tftpboot/boot/xbmcbuntu-11.0 initrd=xbmcbuntu-11.0/casper/initrd.lz --

Once booting, I discovered NFS doesn't work. Other users on other message boards report the same. It works great on other linux clients on my network so I know my server is fine. It doesn't look to be a permissions issue, either. I installed samba and it works fine.

[TomB19]

Do users have access to write Wiki articles? This turned out to be a pretty straight forward procedure. I don't mind documenting it.

It was basically just mount the ISO, copy the files into TFTP, and then take care of the config details. It's all pretty straight forward but the devil is in the details.

[derchris]

I never looked into PXE myself.
As I see DHCP, how about if the DHCP is not on the same server as the PXE server?

I have my DHCP/DNS running on my Router, and would use my NAS as the PXE server.
Do you think this will work?

[Solo0815]

How long does it take to boot? OpenELEC takes about 15-20 sec and it works with NFS.

[TomB19]

I never looked into PXE myself.
As I see DHCP, how about if the DHCP is not on the same server as the PXE server?

I have my DHCP/DNS running on my Router, and would use my NAS as the PXE server.
Do you think this will work?

The DNS/DHCP/tftpd don't have to be on the same server. It can be three different servers.

The issue you might have is the DNS needs to support the "next-server" statement. Also, it's nice to have named clients but I don't think that's important in this case.

How long does it take to boot? OpenELEC takes about 15-20 sec and it works with NFS.

It probably takes over a minute and the system is a fairly new MSI E350. The BIOS only takes about 4 seconds on cold-boot before it starts pulling from the network. Even at that, it takes quite a while.

I have no familiarity with OpenElec. In fact, I hadn't heard of it until a few days ago when I started reading this site.

I'll give it a try and see how it does compared to XBMCbuntu. It's not tough to set up a menu to give the option to PXEboot either system on boot.

[FishOil]

Do users have access to write Wiki articles? This turned out to be a pretty straight forward procedure. I don't mind documenting it.

Please do.

Thanks

[Ned Scott]

Do users have access to write Wiki articles? This turned out to be a pretty straight forward procedure. I don't mind documenting it.

It was basically just mount the ISO, copy the files into TFTP, and then take care of the config details. It's all pretty straight forward but the devil is in the details.

Yep, just make an account, click on the confirm e-mail link that will get sent to you, and you'll have the ability to edit and create pages. Feel free to message me if you have any wiki-related questions.

[vikjon0]

The issue you might have is the DNS needs to support the "next-server" statement.

Have you looked at dhcp proxy? That way you will not disturb the dhcp on the consumer router, if present.
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/UbuntuLTSP/ProxyDHCP

Did you test to install xbmcbuntu over PXE? As an exercise I tried to do that with xbmclive but I failed as I couldnt get the initrd to do what I wanted. (and xbmc live asked for CD too early in the process)