PXE Boot Non-windows ISOs

[stumot]

Afternoon All

 

With summer coming up I was looking to bench test our machines, however the software we use for doing so is an ISO and unfortunately we currently only have a WDS server set up for imaging, so I wondered if anyone else had a solution for booting ISO images over PXE that aren't wim files?

 

Any recommendations would be greatly appreciated

[dmj]

Ultimately you just need a DHCP server, a TFTP server which you are already running in WDS.

I suspect the component you are missing is syslinux (I'm making an assumption that it's a linux ISO you are booting).

There's a howto for that here: https://kenvb.gitbook.io/deploy-linux-with-microsoft-wds/adding-syslinux (you can serve the image via tftp, you don't NEED to use NFS)

 

If you want a more complete package, checkout Foreman or Cobbler.

https://theforeman.org/

https://cobbler.github.io/

Edited July 18, 2023 by dmj

[mavhc]

Also https://www.d7xtech.com/tech-info/network-boot-guide/install-syslinux-on-wds/

[Chockster]

I'm tempted to have a look at https://netboot.xyz over the summer.

[mavhc]

I have spinrite and dban iso's to boot from, what else is useful?

[dmj]

what else is useful?

 

There's sooo many possibilities!

 

25 years ago, when I was at Uni they used to boot entire linux desktop labs that way, I don't mean for installers. I think it was LTSP, or its forerunner.

 

When I was a NM, back in the days of thin clients, we used to setup an option to boot to an RDP session, KVM VDI host, or just a browser. I think there was a memtest option too. It's pretty good method or kiosks. I was always keen on the idea of rebooting entire suites into supercomputing clusters, but never got around to doing that.

 

When I was a Uni sysadmin, we used to let staff choose whether to re-image their PC. If they interrupted the boot process they'd get a PXE menu asking if they wanted a fresh install of Linux or Windows. Self Service FTW!