Know How - VMware Server

PXE boot of a client of VMware server

This here describes how to setup PXE boot a VMware Client from Host only interface vmnet1.

VMware Clients are able to boot via PXE if no OS is found.
To be able to boot via PXE you need to setup DHCP and TFTP.
VMware comes with a DHCP server on all the internal interfaces.
You need to install a TFTP server.

Setting up DHCP

Edit /etc/vmware/vmnet1/dhcpd/dhcpd.conf and add following line to the subnet definiton:

    filename "pxelinux.0";


    next-server 192.168.68.1;

The IP is the IP of your vmnet1 Interface, see

/sbin/ifconfig vmnet1

For some reason the VMware DHCP server pretends to be on .254, which is different from the interface's IP. So you must give "next-server" in the DHCP reply.

The result looks similar to:

allow unknown-clients;


default-lease-time 1800;                # 30 minutes


max-lease-time 7200;                    # 2 hours





subnet 192.168.68.0 netmask 255.255.255.0 {


    range 192.168.68.128 192.168.68.253;


    option broadcast-address 192.168.68.255;


    option domain-name-servers 192.168.68.1;


    option domain-name "localdomain";





    filename "pxelinux.0";


    next-server 192.168.68.1;


}

To edit dhcpd.conf you have to stop VMware first, so do following:

/etc/init.d/vmware stop


vi /etc/vmware/vmnet1/dhcpd/dhcpd.conf


/etc/init.d/vmware start

Setting up TFTP

Install and configure TFTP like follows

apt-get install tftpd-hpa tftp-hpa


vi /etc/default/tftpd-hpa


vi /etc/inetd.conf


/etc/init.d/openbsd-inetd stop


/etc/init.d/openbsd-inetd start

Note that this will install openbsd-inetd, too. You do not need the tftp-hpa client, but it is a good thing to have for debugging purpose.

More detailed:

/etc/default/tftpd-hpa must look like

#Defaults for tftpd-hpa


RUN_DAEMON="no"


OPTIONS="-l -s /var/lib/tftpboot"

This disables a running tftpd as it is more easy to configure this via the good old inetd.

/etc/inetd.conf will look like

192.168.68.1:


tftp           dgram   udp     wait    root  /usr/sbin/in.tftpd /usr/sbin/in.tftpd -s /tftpboot

Note the IP number, it is taken from the DHCP subnet. You can find the host's IP number from the command

/sbin/ifconfig vmnet1

Configuring PXE

For a good start try following:

mkdir /tftpboot


cd /tftpboot





wget -np -r http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/hardy/main/installer-i386/current/images/netboot/ubuntu-installer/i386/





mv archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/hardy/main/installer-i386/current/images/netboot/ubuntu-installer .


rmdir -p archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/hardy/main/installer-i386/current/images/netboot





ln -s ubuntu-installer/i386/pxelinux.0 ubuntu-installer/i386/pxelinux.cfg .

Booting PXE

Just start the VM with the interface connected to the host-only interface. If the VM does not find any OS it will boot from network.

-Tino, 2008-09-04