Puppy Linux Discussion Forum

rcrsn51 · Posted: Fri 02 Dec 2011, 11:49 Post subject:

OK. Just to be clear, "commenting" means to add the # and "uncommenting" means to remove it.

pindrop · Joined: 16 Jan 2012 Posts: 3

Wow great project - this looks like a lot of hard work thanks so much for this contribution. I have not tried it out yet but would like to implement it at work. I had a few questions though:

1) Would it be possible to make the pxe boot default entry be to boot from the pxe client's local hard drive? (We have a bunch of corp servers that many are probably set to pxe boot (this was never an issue because we've never had a pxe server on this corp network), and I'd rather not have them boot into puppy on any reboots... rather than change the boot order on all these Dell servers, I'd like to just have the pxe boot menu boot the client's local hard drive as default). I would imagine this could be accomplished with a simple addition to the default file?

The next 2 questions I haven't researched yet and are likely outside the bounds of your project, and more related to getting the properly customized puppy iso that I need to use; but perhaps someone might have some input.

2) OK, so most of our desktop computers that this would be applicable for are identical with the same NICs, so has anyone ever made a puppy that will auto-dhcp? I always remember having to run the network setup after puppy loads, is there anyway to bypass that and just have puppy auto-sense the correct driver and get a dhcp lease? This would lead to the next question....

3) Once I have an auto-dhcp-lease after pxe-booted into puppy, I'd like to connect to our Windows domain! hehe... preferably, also (this may not be possible I know because you are already logged into puppy as root), I'd like some sort of authentication gui to come up so the user can login with their AD credentials... Anyway I don't think this would even work correctly... I'd imagine I'd have to completely remaster a puppy so that the machine connects to the domain, and then instead of root logging into X, the AD user should log into X... don't really have any idea how to do this part, so any suggestions would be much appreciated.... Thanks!

gcmartin · Joined: 14 Oct 2005 Posts: 2637 Location: Earth

pindrop · Joined: 16 Jan 2012 Posts: 3

MagicZaurus · Joined: 05 Jan 2009 Posts: 88

From what I remember from the DNSMASQ documentation you are able to filter to which request from which PXE clients to do netbooting the TFTP server replies. If you know the MAC addresses of your corporate servers you can filter them out and not even reply to them.

Your suggestion to have a default entry to boot from the local disk should also be possible. It should work with this in your pxelinux.cfg

gcmartin · Joined: 14 Oct 2005 Posts: 2637 Location: Earth

gcmartin · Joined: 14 Oct 2005 Posts: 2637 Location: Earth

My prior post addresses your request for a Menu selection item.

You are aware that if you simply hit escape when your PC tries to PXE that it will skip PXE. Right?

This needs NO menu changes or anything. PXE setup in your BIOS does not LOCK YOU INTO ONLY PXE.

Hope this helps

Master_wrong · Joined: 19 Mar 2008 Posts: 455

@gcmartin

maybe he want a menu instead of hitting "esc", and i think for that he need to change the bios ? because the bios is loaded before puppy, and there is nothing we can do from puppy to control how client access pxe unless we use disk or cd image to run the pxe instead of bios.

slenkar · Joined: 10 Jul 2009 Posts: 129

I followed all the steps but for some reason the netboot server doesnt startup, when I start it in debug mode the window dissappears and nothing else happens

puppyluvr · Posted: Sun 22 Jul 2012, 20:05 Post subject:

Hello,
I never included an entry for "boot from HDD" in MultiPup`s menus because it is redundant.. Take the CD out.. LOL..
PXE booting is an addition to functionality I never anticipated...
However, a simple grub edit, just before building the ISO would suffice..
If GCMartin can help with a grub selection that works, I will make a pet to add it to MultiPup, until I release an updated version...

technosaurus · Joined: 18 May 2008 Posts: 3843

Well, I guess this thread is dead now.
http://tech.slashdot.org/story/12/08/10/1916222/google-granted-cloud-os-patent
apparently USPTO never heard of "prior art"

Aitch · Joined: 04 Apr 2007 Posts: 6825 Location: Chatham, Kent, UK

What happened to the 'prior art' principle?
...... it wasn't destroyed by the claim of patent, so I hope it can be traced back, and they get sued!

Aitch Smile

gcmartin · Joined: 14 Oct 2005 Posts: 2637 Location: Earth

This thread is still active and flourishing. It works. PXE is a standard that is used in all PC chipsets over the past decade and so.

Couple months back, booted a whole switch full of PCs at the same time as a demo of PUPPY POWER!

JamesBond recently built his FATDOG600+ in such a way as it only needs to be loaded in the TFTP and any 64bit PC on the LAN can boot without running the NETBOOT script. (Instructions are pending his next round of fixes-changes to FATDOG600+.)

Hope this helps

technosaurus · Joined: 18 May 2008 Posts: 3843

I was referring to Google patenting our prior art and killing off innovation, not the traditional "dead thread" ... By the uspto measures, puppy could have a patent portfolio that could compete with the best (or worst) of them.

greengeek · Joined: 20 Jul 2010 Posts: 1184 Location: New Zealand

Hi gcmartin - I have been having a lot of problems with PXE booting a variety of PCs and although most of those may be related to specific hardware designs I do feel that there may be an issue with the dnsmasq and/or server3 pet currently on offer.

Specifically, I have a "Penguin computers Green 731" laptop which would consistently fail the PXE load attempt when using the current pets referred to in the google docs (it would hang after searching for the "default", but this was not an issue with location or structure of that file). I found I was able to succeed with a PXE load only when I used the server that jrb had built into PupServer435TNG. TNG version of PupServer found here:
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=60406&start=44
(However that PXE server version had a bug which did not allow the client PC to surf the web after booting if the PXE server was still on line...)

I have found a way to make the server3 pet work, but I don't fully understand the ramifications of what I have found - except that there may be other people who have stumbled against this issue too. I think maybe some hardware cannot cope with the specified "tftp-prefix" and/or the design/location of the pxelinux.0 file

I have documented this here:
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?p=651753#651753

jrb mentions another solution which retains the PupServer435TNG server and involves installing a different version of the dnsmasq pet. I would welcome your opinion if you have time, as I believe I am using the correct pets you have specified and wonder if there may be some benefit in using jrb's server and dnsmasq pet (possibly for all puppies...), or at least working out why the server3 pet creates a pxelinux.0 file that is incompatible with some machines.

EDIT: just confirmed identical behaviour when using Akita8, so not just an issue with PupServer