In computing, the Pre-boot Execution Environment describes a standardized client-server environment that boots a software or operating system, retrieved from a network, on PXE-enabled clients. On the client side it requires only a PXE-enabled network interface controller or LAN card, and uses a small set of industry-standard network protocols such as DHCP and TFTP to retrieve a dynamic IP and load the flash image over network. Refer to the solution section for more details.
Topic
- Linux DHCP configuration to support multiple-subnet PXE environment
- How to setup a DHCP server to support multiple-subnet PXE environment?
- Multiple-Subnet PXE environemnt configuration with Linux DHCP
apt
- Linux
- Centos
- RHEL
- Ubuntu
- Debian
- Suse
- Arch Linux
- Windows
Solution
Setup details
- DHCP Server has 2 NIC adapters with two network subnets
- Subnets: 192.168.10.0/24, 192.168.11.0/24
- DHCP/TFTP server IP: 192.168.10.10(eth0), 192.168.11.10(eth1)
- DHCP and TFTP server on a single system has 192.168.10.10 and 192.168.11.10 IP addresses.
Configuration
Prerequisites
DHCP Configuration
Following are the sample DHCP configuration present in /etc/dhcp/dhcpd.conf file supports multiple subnet PXE installation.
authoritative;
allow booting;
allow bootp;
option option-128 code 128 = string;
option option-129 code 129 = text;
subnet 192.168.10.0 netmask 255.255.255.0 {
option routers 192.168.10.1;
option subnet-mask 255.255.255.0;
option broadcast-address 192.168.10.255;
option domain-name-servers 192.168.10.4;
default-lease-time 28800;
max-lease-time 57600;
next-server 192.168.10.10; ### TFTP Server
filename "pxelinux.0"; ### Pxe File for netboot
pool {
range 192.168.10.100 192.168.10.200;
allow unknown-clients;
}
}
subnet 192.168.11.0 netmask 255.255.255.0 {
option routers 192.168.11.1;
option subnet-mask 255.255.255.0;
option broadcast-address 192.168.11.255;
option domain-name-servers 192.168.11.4;
default-lease-time 28800;
max-lease-time 57600;
next-server 192.168.11.10; ### TFTP Server
filename "pxelinux.0"; ### Pxe File for netboot
pool {
range 192.168.11.100 192.168.11.200;
allow unknown-clients;
}
}
Now configure DHCP to listen on eth0 and eth1 to receive DHCP incoming traffic.
# cat /etc/sysconfig/dhcpd
INTERFACES="eth0 eth1"Restart DHCPD service and test PXE installation from multiple network subnets.
