Certification Objective 15.04Booting and Installing with PXE

Certification Objective 15.04—Booting and Installing with PXE

Exam Objective 6.7: Given a PXE installation scenario, identify requirements and install methods, configure both the install and DHCP server, and boot the x86 client.

To install Solaris on your machine, it must start booting first. You can boot a machine either from local media (diskette, CD, or DVD), or over the network. If your computer implements Intel Preboot Execution Environment (PXE), you can boot your machine over the network by using what is called PXE booting.

Understanding Booting with PXE

If your x86 machine does not have a local medium to boot from, you can install Solaris on it by booting it over the network using PXE. Of course, like any other machine on any network, the client must access a DHCP (dynamic host configuration protocol) server to obtain an IP address before it can access any other machine. The following are the requirements for booting an installation client for installation over a network using PXE:

• PXE support. The client machine must support PXE to perform PXE boot. To find out whether your machine supports PXE network boot, check the hardware documentation. Also note that some early versions of PXE firmware do not support the Solaris system. In this case, you should upgrade the PXE firmware on the adapter, and you can obtain the upgrade information from the adapter manufacturer's web site.

• DHCP server. Your machine does not have a network connection until it has an IP address. For the sake of robustness, and a wise use of IP addresses, it is standard practice to use a DHCP server to assign IP addresses to machines on a network. Therefore, to make a PXE boot work, you will need to set up a DHCP server on your network. Note that PXE does not work well on subnets that use multiple DHCP servers; you should make sure that the subnet to which the installation client is connected has only one DHCP server.

• Install server. Because the installation is being done over the network, you must put the installation software on a machine and set it up as an install server.

You must perform the following steps to boot your machine using PXE and install Solaris on it over the network:

1. Verify that the installation client supports PXE—that is, that it can use PXE to boot without using any local media.

2. Set up an install server—that is, create an install server that contains the installation software (Solaris 10 for x86) to be installed over the network, and add install clients to the server.

3. Set up a DHCP server.

4. Boot the installation client.

5. Choose a Solaris installation method from the available methods, such as Solaris installation program, custom jumpstart, and flash archive.

Earlier in this chapter, you learned the procedure for setting up an install server and adding clients to it. Use the -d option with the add_install client to specify that the client will use the DHCP server to obtain the network install parameters. If you want to use this installation information only for a specific client, use the -e <ethernetAddress> option along with the -d option, where <ethernetAddress> specifies the hardware address of the client machine.

In addition to setting up an install server, you must set up and configure a DHCP server.

Configuring a DHCP Server

You can configure (and unconfigure) a DHCP server by using DHCP Manager on a machine if it is running an X Window system such as CDE or GNOME. You start the DHCP Manager by issuing the /usr/sadm/admin/bin/dhcpmgr command, which starts the DHCP Configuration Wizard. The wizard prompts you for the information needed to configure the server.

Perform the following steps to set up and configure the DHP server:

1. Select the system that you want to use as a DHCP server.

2. Gather the information needed to configure the DHCP server.

3. Become superuser on the machine you selected to be a DHCP server, and start the DHCP Manager by issuing the following command:

       /usr/sadm/admin/bin/dhcpmgr & 

4. Choose the option Configure as DHCP Server. At this point, the DHCP Configuration Wizard starts and queries to get the configuration information from you.

5. Interact with the wizard by making choices on the options, and typing information when requested.

6. At the end of the information-collection phase, click Finish to complete the server configuration.

7. At the Start Address Wizard prompt, click Yes to determine the IP addresses that the server will be managing, and respond to the prompts regarding IP address management.

8. Review your selections, and then click Finish to add the IP addresses to the network table maintained by the server.

As an alternative, you can also use the dhcpconfig command to configure the DHCP server by specifying the configuration information in the command line by using options.

Performing Boot and Installation on the Client

When you install an OS on a machine, you boot the machine from the device where the installation program is waiting to be started. So, to install over the network, you must instruct the install client to boot over the network. You must enable the PXE network boot on the client system by using the BIOS setup program in the machine's BIOS, the network adapter BIOS, or both. On some machines, you may need to change the boot device priority list to make network boot the highest priority: this way, the machine tries to boot from the network before attempting to boot from any other device. You can determine this by checking the manufacturer's documentation or by paying attention to the setup program instructions during boot.

Perform the following steps to boot an x86-based machine over the network by using PXE:

1. Turn on the machine. Press the appropriate key combination to enter the system's BIOS to enable the PXE boot. Some PXE-capable network adapters have a feature that allows you to press an appropriate key in response to a boot prompt, and this will enable the PXE boot. In that case, you can skip step 2.

2. In the system's BIOS, instruct the system to boot from the network. Check your hardware documentation to find out how to set the boot priority in the BIOS.

3. Exit the BIOS. The install client starts booting from the network.

4. When prompted, select an installation method:

   • To select the Solaris interactive installation GUI, type 1 and press ENTER.

   • To select a custom JumpStart installation, type 2 and press ENTER.

   • To select the Solaris interactive text installer in a desktop session, type 3 and press ENTER.

   • To select the Solaris interactive text installer in a console session, type 4 and press ENTER.

5. Answer the system configuration questions, if prompted,

6. After the system boot and installation over the network is complete, instruct the system to boot from the disk drive on subsequent boots, if that's what you want.

When you install Solaris and other software packages, you set up an operating environment isolated from other Solaris operating environments on other machines. If you want to install another application (or a set of applications) that require an isolated environment, you will need to install Solaris on another machine on which this set of applications will run. The question is Can I create multiple isolated environments on one machine? The answer is Yes, by using the Solaris zone technology introduced in Solaris 10.