Diskless Remote Boot in Linux (DRBL)

[Copyright] [Authors] [Preamble] [Change Logs] [Requirements] [Installation] [Acknowledgement] [Misc] [Donate!] [Wiki] [Reference]



1. Copyright

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We recommend this document principally for works whose purpose is instruction or reference. The author and publisher will not take any responsibility if there is any damage caused by this document.

2. Authors

Steven Shiau (steven _at_ nchc org tw)
Blake, Kuo-Lien Huang (klhaung _at_ gmail com)
H. T. Wang (c00wht00 _at_ nchc org tw)
Ceasar Sun (ceasar _at_ nchc org tw)
Jazz Wang (jazz _at_ nchc org tw)
Thomas Tsai (thomas _at_ nchc org tw)

3. Preamble

This document describes the steps to setup the "DRBL" environment in Debian Woody(3.0)/Sarge(3.1)/Etch, B2D, Ubuntu Breezy(5.10), Dapper(6.06), RedHat Linux 8.0, 9, Fedora Core 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, Mandrake 9.2, 10.0, 10.1, Mandriva LE2005 (10.2), 2006, CentOS 4 (4.3), SuSE 9.3 and OpenSuSE 10.0. Sorry but it will not work in other distributions or versions.

4. Change Logs

    1. 2003/07/28 Begin to write this manual "DRBL for RedHat 9"
    2. 2003/08/01 Add the notes for bug of RH9 glibc
    3. 2004/03/27 Support RedHat 8.0, 9, FC1 and Mandrake linux 9.2,10
    4. 2004/07/22 Add doc for FC2.
    5. 2005/01/28 Add url of unstable version.
    6. 2005/02/07 Add FC3 note.
    7. 2005/03/11 Add screenshot and donation.
    8. 2005/05/01 Use etherboot 5.4.0 as an example in step 4.
    9. 2005/06/23 Update some messages.
    10. 2005/10/26 Update with the one-for-all version.
    11. 2005/11/19 Update with SuSE 10.0/OpenSuSE 10.0.
    12. 2005/11/19 Use etherboot 5.4.1 as an example in step 4, and add grub netboot.
    13. 2006/05/15 add (1) description for full DRBL, full Clonezilla, DRBL SSI, and Clonezilla box modes. (2) WinGRUB.

5. Basic requirements

6. Setup the Diskless Remote boot in Linux (DRBL) Environment

I. Setup the Linux Server


II. Setup the clients

Note: This process is done in the server but its purpose is for use by the clients

For the impatient: If you are impatient, run "/opt/drbl/sbin/drbl4imp" to finish step "2c" and "3a". "drbl4imp" uses the default vaules to setup the DRBL server. THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT! The default value might not fit your environment! It uses the "range" option in dhcp server so your DRBL client will not always get the same IP address. It also assumes each of the server's network card (except eth0) provides DRBL services to 12 clients. If you want the setup to fit your environment, please run steps "2c" and "3a" step-by-step.

III. Set up the file system for the client in the Server

         NIC    NIC IP                    Clients
+-----------------------------+
| DRBL SERVER |
| |
|+-- [eth0] public IP +- to WAN
| (ex. 61.216.116.23) |
| |
|+-- [eth0:1] 192.168.100.254 +- to clients group 1 [ 10 clients, their IP
| | from 192.168.100.1 - 192.168.100.10]
|+-- [eth1] 192.168.101.254 +- to clients group 1 [ 10 clients, their IP
| | from 192.168.101.1 - 192.168.101.10]
|+-- [eth2] 192.168.102.254 +- to clients group 2 [ 10 clients, their IP
| | from 192.168.102.1 - 192.168.102.10]
|+-- [eth3] 192.168.103.254 +- to clients group 3 [ 10 clients, their IP
| | from 192.168.103.1 - 192.168.103.10]
+-----------------------------+

When you use multiple NICs to expand the bandwidth, we recommend you set the MAC addresses so that every node will get the same IP address all the time. (i.e. in the fillowing step 3a, when you run "/opt/drbl/sbin/drblpush -i", it prompts "Do you want to fix the IP address of client connected to eth1 by giving MAC address ? [y/N]", choose "Y"). If you do NOT set MAC address (we will call it "range" from now), and you have only one 48-port network switch (or many switches but connected to be one), and you use four NICs (or more than two...) in DRBL server to expand the network bandwidth, a problem will occur (i.e. some clients will not lease IP from DHCP server) so it will not be able to boot.
On the other hand, if your DRBL server uses four NICs to expand the network bandwidth (meaning that four NICs with four private subnets such as 192.168.100.x, 192.168,101,x, 192.168.102.x, 192.168.103.x), and you have exactly four switches that are seperated and not connected to each other, then you can use range (i.e. you do not have to set the MAC address of clients).
Remember, if you use N NICs to expand network bandwidth in the DRBL server, if using the "range" method, then you must have N switches and they can NOT be connected to each other.


IV. Setting up clients to use the DRBL environment
V. Additional usage for the DRBL environment

Acknowledgements

Misc.

Donate!

Wiki

References




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