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#1 2011-03-23 15:26:03

the_general
Member
Registered: 2011-03-23
Posts: 10

Headless PXE install

I have had good success installing Arch via PXE using the archiso-pxe-server script. But now I have a rack machine that has no video card and no cdrom drive (it won't be feasible to get them either): only a serial port. I can get the install started well enough by hitting tab and adding console=ttyS0 to the boot options... but later on it boots into a new kernel (a second time) and sure enough, i lose my console connection shortly afterwards. I must admit that the installation process is a bit magical to me, and i don't get why its booting into a ramdisk installation a second time. The ideal solution would be to somehow append boot options the second time the kernel gets fired up, but i don't see how this can be done. Maybe i need to build a custom image for this, or perhaps a standard PXE setup would work better?

If anybody has any experience with this or any ideas I would greatly appreciate it. I'm drawing blanks at this point! Thank you.

Last edited by the_general (2011-03-23 16:58:09)


It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.

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#2 2011-03-23 17:17:26

oliver
Member
Registered: 2007-12-12
Posts: 448

Re: Headless PXE install

we have a few RHEL boxes at work with serial only connections... we boot the install CD the same way (with console=ttyS1) but we edit /etc/inittab after installation and before a reboot and modify the co line as follows:

co:2345:respawn:/sbin/agetty ttyS1 19200 vt100-nav

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#3 2011-03-23 18:21:31

the_general
Member
Registered: 2011-03-23
Posts: 10

Re: Headless PXE install

I think that the CD install is different... the wiki entry for using Arch over a serial console describes installing via CD. Unfortunately i can't do that, and PXE doesn't seem to be working quite as well for whatever reason.


It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.

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#4 2011-03-23 20:24:37

Dieter@be
Forum Fellow
From: Belgium
Registered: 2006-11-05
Posts: 2,001
Website

Re: Headless PXE install

@the_general we actually very recently applied patches to archiso which should configure inittab for exactly your use case. keep an eye on http://releng.archlinux.org/isos/
one of these days you should see a new images (i.e. dated march 23 or later) which should work for you.
See also:
http://mailman.archlinux.org/pipermail/ … 01541.html
http://mailman.archlinux.org/pipermail/ … 01536.html
there's a bugreport about it somewhere too


< Daenyth> and he works prolifically
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#5 2011-03-24 15:52:22

the_general
Member
Registered: 2011-03-23
Posts: 10

Re: Headless PXE install

Sounds great. Thank you!


It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.

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#6 2011-03-24 16:21:54

the_general
Member
Registered: 2011-03-23
Posts: 10

Re: Headless PXE install

So the new release ISO didn't work. The last messages i get are:

:: Starting agetty on console: ttyS0    [BUSY]    [DONE]
INIT: Id "z0" respawning too fast: disabled for 5 minutes

Also, i had to momentarily step up the baud rate in order to see and use the initial loader screen, and then set it back down once things started to load. That wasn't the case before.


It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.

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#7 2011-03-25 12:46:28

Dieter@be
Forum Fellow
From: Belgium
Registered: 2006-11-05
Posts: 2,001
Website

Re: Headless PXE install

find the bugreport that Simo created on the bugtracker and reopen it.
alternatively, create a new one.


< Daenyth> and he works prolifically
4 8 15 16 23 42

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#8 2011-03-25 15:56:36

the_general
Member
Registered: 2011-03-23
Posts: 10

Re: Headless PXE install

Will do.

I finally resolved this, by-the-way, by creating custom ISO, which was easy enough to do. Arch is wonderful!


It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.

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#9 2011-03-25 15:57:43

Dieter@be
Forum Fellow
From: Belgium
Registered: 2006-11-05
Posts: 2,001
Website

Re: Headless PXE install

the_general wrote:

Will do.

I finally resolved this, by-the-way, by creating custom ISO, which was easy enough to do. Arch is wonderful!

that only helps you out;  if there is a bug in the official stuff it should be fixed, otherwise it affects many people in the community.


< Daenyth> and he works prolifically
4 8 15 16 23 42

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#10 2015-02-27 13:40:37

FirefighterBlu3
Member
Registered: 2015-02-27
Posts: 10

Re: Headless PXE install

FYI to @the_general, if you're running your own PXE service which provides a standard syslinux pxelinux.0, you can use a menu section that appends as normally expected. here's my archlinux.menu file which is provided from the default menu.

# cat archlinux.menu
MENU TITLE ArchLinux Menu

MENU WIDTH 78
MENU MARGIN 4
MENU ROWS 7
MENU VSHIFT 10
MENU TABMSGROW 14
MENU CMDLINEROW 14
MENU HELPMSGROW 16
MENU HELPMSGENDROW 29
MENU CLEAR

LABEL MainMenu
   MENU LABEL ^Return to Main Menu
   KERNEL menu.c32
   APPEND pxelinux.cfg/default

LABEL Install ArchLinux
   TEXT HELP
   Boot the Arch Linux (x86_64) live medium (Using NFS).
   It allows you to install Arch Linux or perform system maintenance.
   ENDTEXT

   MENU LABEL Boot ^ArchLinux Image
   LINUX ArchLinux/boot/x86_64/vmlinuz
   INITRD ArchLinux/boot/intel_ucode.img,ArchLinux/boot/x86_64/archiso.img
   APPEND irqpoll console=ttyS0,19200n8 edd=off archisobasedir=arch archisolabel=ARCH_201502 archiso_nbd_srv=${pxeserver}
   SYSAPPEND 3

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#11 2015-02-27 14:43:59

nomorewindows
Member
Registered: 2010-04-03
Posts: 3,415

Re: Headless PXE install

I don't know why you just don't have SSH enabled so you can install it from ssh connection with the PXE client.


I may have to CONSOLE you about your usage of ridiculously easy graphical interfaces...
Look ma, no mouse.

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