RHEL 8 ISO Bootable on FOG

[boros]

I need to get a bootable ISO RHEL 8 on my Fog Server. My FOG is running Ubuntu 20.04.
I was trying to do a similar setup as with GParted but it doesn’t work. I see in the tutorials there is no CentOS either. Is there a problem with bootable RHEL 8?

[george1421]

@boros There is no RHEL/CentOS since they are both dead to me now that IBM had its way…

BUT, someone with the proper motivation can probably make it work. I would start with my post here: https://forums.fogproject.org/post/103324 That will give you the basic layout. Now lets mix it with these instructions. https://docs.centos.org/en-US/8-docs/advanced-install/assembly_preparing-for-a-network-install/

The most useful section is from the syslinux boot menu.

label linux
  menu label ^Install system
  menu default
  kernel images/CentOS-8/vmlinuz
  append initrd=images/CentOS-8/initrd.img ip=dhcp inst.repo=http://10.32.5.1/CentOS-8/x86_64/iso-contents-root/

While FOG uses iPXE its possible to translate between the two formats. From the first link this is what I used to call centos 7 installer.

kernel tftp://${fog-ip}/os/centos/7/vmlinuz
initrd tftp://${fog-ip}/os/centos/7/initrd.img
imgargs vmlinuz initrd=initrd.img root=live:nfs://${fog-ip}:/images/os/centos/7/LiveOS/squashfs.img ip=dhcp inst.repo=nfs:${fog-ip}:/images/os/centos/7 splash quiet
boot || goto MENU

So to update the syslinux format to iPXE

kernel tftp://${fog-ip}/os/centos/8/vmlinuz
initrd tftp://${fog-ip}/os/centos/8/initrd.img
imgargs vmlinuz initrd=initrd.img ip=dhcp inst.repo=http://${fog-ip}/centos8/ splash quiet
boot || goto MENU

So you will need to copy vmlinuz and initrd.img from the iso to the fog server into /tftpboot/os/centos/8 directory. This places the boot files in scope of the tftp server. The next is to place the contents of the iso (extracted) into the scope of the web server in /var/www/html/centos8 directory. So the target computer will load linux and the initrd from the tftp server and then access the rest of the centos files from the contents uploaded to the web server.

[boros]

Sorry for the 8 month reply. It worked as you pointed out! I have switched to RHEL 9.5

Here is how it was done if someone is interested:

Download the RHEL9.5.iso to the fog server (mine is running Ubuntu)
sudo mkdir /mnt/rhel_iso
sudo mount -o loop /path/to/rhel-9.5.iso /mnt/rhel_iso

Copy the contents to var:
sudo mkdir -p /var/www/html/rhel9.5
sudo cp -r /mnt/rhel_iso/* /var/www/html/rhel9.5/
sudo chmod -R 755 /var/www/html/rhel9.5

Get the vmlinuz and initrd.img from the /var/www/html/rhel9.5 to /tftpboot/rhel9.5 (create /tftpboot/rhel9.5 folder)
sudo cp /var/www/html/rhel9.5/images/pxeboot/vmlinuz /tftpboot/rhel9.5/
sudo cp /var/www/html/rhel9.5/images/pxeboot/initrd.img /tftpboot/rhel9.5/

Before you move on, go to http://your-fog-server-ip/rhel9.5 make sure you can see the directories of the iso content you dropped in /var/www/html/rhel9.5

Set up the Menu on the Fog UI (Here is mine)

kernel tftp://10.10.10.6/rhel9.5/vmlinuz
initrd tftp://10.10.10.6/rhel9.5/initrd.img
imgargs vmlinuz initrd=initrd.img ip=dhcp inst.repo=http://10.10.10.6/rhel9.5/ splash quiet
boot || goto MENU