Switching to Gpxelinux

[Kevin]

So i’ve seen people post switching their servers over to gpxelinux for faster boot times, and using http instead of tftp. I now am running into a situation where we might need to use a tftp server at work for other programs, and our FOG server might be going away. From what i’ve read, you can use gpxelinux to boot over http instead of tftp. However, from when i’ve played with it, i’ve never actually been able to boot anything with gpxelinux. I get either vesamenu.32 errors, or that a URL syntax has been detected, and just fails. So i’m here to see if someone could write up a how to on how to switch FOG over to gpxe completely instead of regular pxe. I know people say it’s as easy as replacing pxelinux with gpxelinux, and some config changes, but I have yet to see anything work. Any write up would be appreciated!

[jbsclm]

I’ve managed to get it to work in a test environment, see the attached zipped word document.
We don’t use multicast, and get slow loading when imaging PCs, this may well improve things for us.

Let me know how you go on.

[url=“/_imported_xf_attachments/0/234_gpxelinux.zip?:”]gpxelinux.zip[/url]

[Kevin]

The guide helped a lot. Thank you for it. Since I use Ubuntu, things were in different places, but I was able to get it figured out. I can post the changes here if you’d like. I was able to image some VM’s and boot ISO’s with it, so i’m pretty happy. The one thing i’m not sure of though is that when I select an item to boot, whether is be an image or an ISO, the screen doesn’t clear. So I can still see the background and the items loading on the bottom. This could be because of it being in a VM, but i’m not sure. Any ideas? I loaded it via TFTP this time so I could take the screenshot, but it started doing this when it boot with the gpxelinux. I mean, an easy work around would be to make the screen all black, but curious as to why that’s happening.[IMG]http://i1066.photobucket.com/albums/u416/kgaudio2/FOG_zps3de63507.jpg[/IMG]

[falko]

[quote=“Kevin, post: 10328, member: 3”]The guide helped a lot. Thank you for it. Since I use Ubuntu, things were in different places, but I was able to get it figured out. I can post the changes here if you’d like. I was able to image some VM’s and boot ISO’s with it, so i’m pretty happy. The one thing i’m not sure of though is that when I select an item to boot, whether is be an image or an ISO, the screen doesn’t clear. So I can still see the background and the items loading on the bottom. This could be because of it being in a VM, but i’m not sure. Any ideas? I loaded it via TFTP this time so I could take the screenshot, but it started doing this when it boot with the gpxelinux. I mean, an easy work around would be to make the screen all black, but curious as to why that’s happening.[IMG]http://i1066.photobucket.com/albums/u416/kgaudio2/FOG_zps3de63507.jpg[/IMG][/quote]
please post you Ubuntu changes, would be interested. Or make a wiki page

[jbsclm]

I just missed one step I think.
When you create a task, it puts in the default values for kernel and boot image, you need to go into fog settings and set the following
FOG_TFTP_PXE_KERNEL
FOG_PXE_BOOT_IMAGE
to
[url]http://192.168.1.104/fogboot/kernel/bzImage[/url]
and
[url]http://192.168.1.104/fogboot/images/init.gz[/url]

substituting your own Ip address

If you don’t change these then it will use tftp.

BTW my screen looks normal, I’m using virtual box

[Kevin]

I have it working with HTTP, I just ran it through tftp that time so it would stay on the screen long enough for me to take the screenshot. Everything is working as it should minus that window above

[Kevin]

I have made a wiki page for this, [url]http://www.fogproject.org/wiki/index.php/Switching_to_gpxelinux_on_Ubuntu_FOG_server[/url]

[falko]

Nice share, will have to test this out.
What is the advantage of using gpxe?

[Kevin]

gpxelinux uses http as the protocol instead of tftp. The big advantage is that items from the pxe menu will load significantly faster than tftp, which is limited to around 2-4 MB/s. In a test environment, and loaded an ISO that took 4:52 to boot using tftp and pxelinux. When using http from gpxelinux, the same iso was able to load in 14.9 seconds.

[falko]

Thanks Kevin

[falko]

does multicast work, anyone know?

[jbsclm]

I’ve not tried it, but the boot file that gets generated has the http path rather than the file path.
It must use

FOG_TFTP_PXE_KERNEL
FOG_PXE_BOOT_IMAGE

for its kernel and init.gz.

We use capone ( with a couple of tweaks ) tied to the system serial rather than multicast.
The tweaks we have mean that we get an image history for each PC, so we know if it has a history of rebuild.

[jayphizzle]

switching to the faster gpxelinux sounds great.
I’m gone through the wiki article but stuck on step 7 (dhcp).
We don’t use fog as dhcp server, this will be handeld by our ms 2008 server.

Can i skip this step and it should still work?
Or do i need to configure something on the win server ?

[Kevin]

I think all you would need to do is point option 66 or 67 in DCHP settings from pxelinux.0 to gpxelinux.0. I have not personally tried this, but that should be all that’s needed.

[jbsclm]

A word of warning, we tried gpxelinux and http in our live environment, but found that performance was much worse that pxelinux and tftp.
Looking at the wireshark traces showed lost of retransmissions, whci is well documented on the web, mainly in a vmware environment. From what I could see on the web there is no solution, so we have reverted back to pxelinux and tftp.

[wolf_from_the_north]

Hi,

My name is christophe and i’m kinda new to all this fog happening.
I tried to follow your guide but can’t get any of it to work.
i have a running configuration in VM on the latest virtualbox.
i installed syslinux 5.10 ( latest version ) and followed your wiki page.
but when i make the changes to gpxe it does not work, the dhcp server keeps booting to tftp, adjusting the links in the bootmenu config file as suggested it simply replies that the file does not excist or its a wrong path.
i tried to acces the files in my internet explorer and it works just fine.
can some help me get my fogserver up and running on http protocol please ? or indicate what i can be doing wrong ?
it seems that when de dhcp starts it denies the http protocol but on the website of syslinux they say it should support http protocol now.

help !!!

thnx

[Kevin]

wolf,

Did you run this command, [B][FONT=sans-serif][COLOR=#000000]ln -s /tftpboot/fog fogboot [/COLOR][/FONT][/B][FONT=sans-serif][COLOR=#000000]from the [B]www/var folder[/B][/COLOR][/FONT]? If you ran through the guide, steps 1-8, it will still boot through tftp until you run that command.

[wolf_from_the_north]

i did run the command and tested in my browser, got a download request and i could browse the folder contents in IE
i just tried to adjust the dhcp server with option 209 and 210 --> still no luck ?
can you help me please ?

[wolf_from_the_north]

maybe som other info
i’m running Ubuntu server 10.04 LTS and fog 0.32
also when i try to load the gpxelinux.0 trough my isc dhcp3 server is fails -> it just runs block , only pxelinux.0 works
all files are from syslinux 5.10 including the vesamenu.c32

thnx for allready looking into this case.

[wolf_from_the_north]

small update from me.
i did not get it to work on GPXE butt !!!
I got it to work with Ipxe on http