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Table Of Contents
Example of Booting Using iPXE and HTTP with IPv4
This example shows how to configure an ISC DHCP server to boot ESXi by loading iPXE from a
TFTP server at IPv4 address xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx.
#
# ISC DHCP server configuration file snippet. This is not a complete
# configuration file; see the ISC server documentation for details on
# how to configure the DHCP server.
#
allow booting;
allow bootp;
option client-system-arch code 93 = unsigned integer 16;
class "pxeclients" {
match if substring(option vendor-class-identifier, 0, 9) = "PXEClient";
next-server xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx;
if option client-system-arch = 00:07 or option client-system-arch = 00:09 {
if exists user-class and option user-class = "iPXE" {
# Instruct iPXE to load mboot.efi as secondary bootloader
filename = "mboot.efi";
} else {
# Load the snponly.efi configuration of iPXE as initial bootloader
filename = "snponly.efi";
}
} else {
if exists user-class and option user-class = "iPXE" {
# Instruct iPXE to load pxelinux as secondary bootloader
filename = "pxelinux.0";
} else {
# Load the undionly configuration of iPXE as initial bootloader
filename = "undionly.kpxe";
}
}
When a machine attempts to PXE boot, the DHCP server provides an IP address and the location
of the undionly.kpxe or snponly.efi binary file on the TFTP server. In the legacy BIOS case,
iPXE then asks the DHCP server for the next file to load, and the server returns pxelinux.0 as the
filename. In the UEFI case, iPXE then asks the DHCP server for the next file to load, and this time
the server returns mboot.efi as the filename. In both cases, iPXE is resident and the system has
HTTP capability. As a result the system can load additional files from an HTTP server.
Example of Booting Using iPXE and HTTP with IPv6
This example shows how to configure an ISC DHCPv6 server to boot ESXi by loading iPXE from a
TFTP server at IPv6 address xxxx:xxxx:xxxx:xxxx::xxxx.
#
# ISC DHCPv6 server configuration file snippet. This is not a complete
# configuration file; see the ISC server documentation for details on
# how to configure the DHCP server.
#
allow booting;
allow bootp;
VMware ESXi Installation and Setup
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