I have created functional PXE servers on both Ubuntu and Debian that are able to host Ubuntu 10.04.4 (32 and 64 bit) as well as the Offline NT Password/Regedit disk.
Now I am attempting to install other linux flavours, which seems to be less trivial.
My method for setting up for Ubuntu net install is as follows:
Setup dhcp, nfs, and tftp.
contents of pxelinux.cfg/default:
default menu.c32
menu title PXE
timeout 1000
label local
menu label Ubuntu 10.04.4 i386
kernel ubuntu32/ubuntu/casper/vmlinuz
append initrd=ubuntu32/ubuntu/casper/initrd.lz boot=casper netboot=nfs
root=/dev/nfs rw nfsroot=192.168.1.17:/srv/tftp/ubuntu32/ubuntu ip=dhcp
label local
menu label Ubuntu 10.04.0 amd64
kernel ubuntu64/ubuntu/casper/vmlinuz
append initrd=ubuntu64/ubuntu/casper/initrd.lz boot=casper netboot=nfs
root=/dev/nfs rw nfsroot=192.168.1.17:/srv/tftp/ubuntu64/ubuntu ip=dhcp
I attempted to do the same thing for Debian 6, which successfully booted... but ended up being not what I need. From what I can tell, it -only- will grab the files it needs from the disk drive and thus I was unable to actually install it. I then used the Net install version of Debian, which also worked to some extent. The installer gets the files from the internet, which is not ideal as I need to work in an offline environment. I am thinking that if I supply a local repo, it should work, but I would like it to be as simple as Ubuntu and just use the nfs dir.
What is very puzzling is Fedora. I used to same method as I used for Ubuntu for a Fedora 17 image, but I always got an error regarding dracut not being able to mount my nfs. I did a good deal of googling, but came across odd stuff regarding custom version of initramfs, booting off the iso itself, or minimal installs that use a net repo. Just about every example I see uses an http url, when I would prefer using NFS.
So, my overall question is: Is there a simple way to boot Debian and Fedora using nfs and not worry about network install locations in the way that I can Ubuntu?
