Installation guide

Appendix C. PXE installation of

XenServer Host

This appendix describes setting up a TFTP server to enable PXE booting of XenServer Host

installations. It also describes the use of an XML answerfile, which allows you to perform unat-

tended installations.

C.1. Setting up the PXE boot environment

To create a PXE environment, you need:

• a TFTP server to enable PXE booting

• a DHCP server to provide IP addresses to the systems that are going to PXE-boot

• an NFS, FTP, or HTTP server to house the installation files

These can all co-exist on the same server, or be distributed on different servers on the network.

Additionally, each system that you want to PXE boot and install the XenServer on needs a PXE

boot-enabled Ethernet card.

The following steps assume that the Linux server or servers you will use have RPM support.

Procedure C.1. To set up a TFTP server for PXE booting

1. TFTP requires SYSLINUX 3.11 or above. SYSLINUX is a collection of boot loaders for the

Linux operating system which operates on Linux EXT2/EXT3 file systems, MS-DOS FAT

file systems, network servers using PXE firmware, and CD-ROMs. Make sure you have

SYSLINUX version 3.11 or above installed on your system with the command

#rpm -q syslinux

If you have a earlier version, you can download an appropriate later version from ftp://

ftp.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/boot/syslinux/RPMS/i386/, then install it

using the command

#rpm -Uvh syslinux.-.rpm

2. Check if the tftp server package is installed:

#rpm -q tftp-server

If not, use system-config-packages and install.

3. Edit the file /etc/xinetd.d/tftp to change the line

disable = yes