[ipxe-devel] iPXE server

[Andrew Bobulsky]

bHello Marcel,

You've asked a lot of questions here, so I'll do my best to answer them
inline with your original message.

On Mon, May 20, 2013 at 7:30 AM, <m.m_de_vries at online.nl> wrote:


> Hello,
>
> I have set up a pxe-server from which I can install Ubuntu and Windows7.
> But when I boot PE-environment for installing WIndows it stops with a dis
> shell. Then I have to make e new script to start the actual installation.
> That's not what I want. The solution is simple, make a startup script in
> the boot.wim file and it will start. OK that works. But now comes a
> problem, whenI want to seperate a Windows 7 home installation from a
> Windows 7 Pro installation. The problem is that I can only point to the
> .wim file and than the BCD file wil be loaded. But there is no way to load
> another BCD file or .wim file.
>

The BCD and WIM files that you provide to Wimboot can be modified, as it
looks like you have done, to start an automatic installation.  The
important thing to realize here, though, is that wimboot isn't really a
utility for installing Windows, it's just designed to help you PXE boot
Windows PE in a modular fashion.  The contents of the BCD don't have any
influence on Windows Setup, so the easiest method for you to create two
different Windows PE boot directories, identical in every way except for
the boot.wim file.  In one boot.wim, pack in your automatic Windows 7 Home
setup script.  Put them in side-by-side directories such that you can
create two iPXE scripts, name the first directory win7home and the second
win7pro.  Using the example from the wimboot web page, script 1 could
be named win7home.ipxe, and script 2 named win7pro.ipxe, that look like
this:




>  win7home.ipxe

#!ipxe
> kernel wimboot
> initrd win7home/bootmgr          bootmgr
> initrd win7home/boot/bcd         BCD
> initrd win7home/boot/boot.sdi    boot.sdi
> initrd win7home/sources/boot.wim boot.wim
> imgstat
> boot
>
 win7pro.ipxe

#!ipxe
kernel wimboot
initrd win7pro/bootmgr          bootmgr
initrd win7pro/boot/bcd         BCD
initrd win7pro/boot/boot.sdi    boot.sdi
initrd win7pro/sources/boot.wim boot.wim
imgstat
boot

As the scripts imply, instead of having wimboot in the same folder as
bootmgr and the /boot/ folder, you'll have wimboot sitting in a folder with
two subfolders, one named win7home, and the other named win7pro, along with
the win7home.ipxe and win7pro.ipxe script files.


> I tried iPXE but now I have the problem that the client doesn't load
> boot.ipxe with the http protocol. It persist with the tftp protocol and
> keeps telling me that it could not find the file. How can I force the
> client to load the boot.ipxe file with http or load it with tftp. I
> followed the instructions on http://ipxe.org/wimboot.


When you're at the iPXE command line, in order to keep things as close to
the PXE spec as possible, if a protocol isn't specified in your
URL, iPXE will use TFTP by default.

I'm not completely certain on this, but usually a command like


chain http://webserver/script.ipxe


will result in any further downloads done by iPXE to use the same protocol
that the script itself was downloaded with.  However, if you find yourself
needing to force iPXE to use a particular protocol, just fill out the full
paths in the script itself.  Using the win7pro.ipxe script I wrote above,
try this instead:


>  win7pro.ipxe

#!ipxe
kernel http://webserver/wimboot
initrd http://webserver/win7pro/bootmgr          bootmgr
initrd http://webserver/win7pro/boot/bcd         BCD
initrd http://webserver/win7pro/boot/boot.sdi    boot.sdi
initrd http://webserver/win7pro/sources/boot.wim boot.wim
imgstat
boot

That should get the behavior you desire.


> Is it possible to start an installation of Windows7 Home and Windows7 Pro
> from the same pxeserver.
> Thank you in advance.
>
> Kind Regards,
> Marcel de Vries
>

We do it all the time ;)

Don't hesitate to mail back if you're at all confused, network booting can
be a little tricky when you first get into it!  Good luck to you!

Best Regards,
Andrew Bobulsky
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