[ipxe-devel] iPXE and Windows Server 2003

[Sven Dreyer]

Hi Shahid,

Am 04.03.2011 16:55, schrieb Shahid Munir:
> Hi Sven,
> I have PXE running to install ESXi and now I have set-up iPXE. I want to
> install using iPXE but I cannot load the pxelinux.0 or the gpxelinux.0
> in iPXE.

Chainloading PXE -> iPXE -> gpxelinux -> menu.c32 and so on doesn't seem 
senseful for me.

Put the following in your Webserver root directory:
installesxi.ipxe
esxi.iso
memdisk

And the following in your tftp root directory:
undionly.kpxe

The contents of installesxi.ipxe:
#!ipxe
imgfetch http://your.webserver/esxi.iso
chain http://your.webserver/memdisk iso raw

The memdisk file comes from syslinux distibution (download it from 
http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/boot/syslinux/ ).

The esxi.iso is an ISO image you downloaded from VMware.

Then configure your DHCP server to hand out 
"http://your.webserver/installesxi.ipxe" as the boot file name.

What then happens is:
- PXE loads undionly.kpxe
- undionly.kpxe (which is iPXE) loads the installesxi.ipxe script from 
the webserver
- The scripts downloads the ISO image from the webserver
- The script also downloads the memdisk executable from the webserver
- iPXE executes memdisk, which starts the ESXi installation.

You need a lot of RAM for that.

Good luck!
Sven