Installation guide

Chapter 19.
115
Setting Up A Remote Diskless System
The Network Booting Service (provided by system-config-netboot) is no longer available in Red
Hat Enterprise Linux 6. Deploying diskless systems is now possible in this release without the use of
system-config-netboot.
To set up a basic remote diskless system booted over PXE, you need the following packages:
• tftp-server
• xinetd
• dhcp
• syslinux
• dracut-network
Remote diskless system booting requires both a tftp service (provided by tftp-server) and a
DHCP service (provided by dhcp). The tftp service is used to retrieve kernel image and initrd
over the network via the PXE loader. Both tftp and DHCP services must be provided by the same
host machine.
The following sections outline the necessary procedures for deploying remote diskless systems in a
network environment.
19.1. Configuring a tftp Service for Diskless Clients
The tftp service is disabled by default. To enable it and allow PXE booting via the network, set the
Disabled option in /etc/xinetd.d/tftp to no. To configure tftp, perform the following steps:
1. The tftp root directory (chroot) is located in /var/lib/tftpboot. Copy /usr/share/
syslinux/pxelinux.0 to /var/lib/tftpboot/, as in:
cp /usr/share/syslinux/pxelinux.0 /var/lib/tftpboot/
2. Create a pxelinux.cfg directory inside the tftp root directory:
mkdir -p /var/lib/tftpboot/pxelinux.cfg/
You will also need to configure firewall rules properly to allow tftp traffic; as tftp supports TCP
wrappers, you can configure host access to tftp via /etc/hosts.allow. For more information
on configuring TCP wrappers and the /etc/hosts.allow configuration file, refer to the Red Hat
Enterprise Linux 6 Security Guide; man hosts_access also provides information about /etc/
hosts.allow.
After configuring tftp for diskless clients, configure DHCP, NFS, and the exported file system
accordingly. Refer to Section 19.2, “Configuring DHCP for Diskless Clients” and Section 19.3,
“Configuring an Exported File System for Diskless Clients” for instructions on how to do so.
19.2. Configuring DHCP for Diskless Clients
After configuring a tftp server, you need to set up a DHCP service on the same host machine.
Refer to the Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 Deployment Guide for instructions on how to set up a DHCP
server. In addition, you should enable PXE booting on the DHCP server; to do this, add the following
configuration to /etc/dhcp/dhcp.conf: