From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Tue Dec 4 18:24:09 2012 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [69.147.83.52]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 71797B48 for ; Tue, 4 Dec 2012 18:24:09 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from vrwmiller@gmail.com) Received: from mail-lb0-f182.google.com (mail-lb0-f182.google.com [209.85.217.182]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id DD86C8FC0C for ; Tue, 4 Dec 2012 18:24:08 +0000 (UTC) Received: by mail-lb0-f182.google.com with SMTP id go10so4623887lbb.13 for ; Tue, 04 Dec 2012 10:24:07 -0800 (PST) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gmail.com; s=20120113; h=mime-version:sender:in-reply-to:references:date :x-google-sender-auth:message-id:subject:from:to:cc:content-type; bh=BWFI8Qj6zpmSYa7KjN4nVZO1auDE8Y4WpK7sjVYoy98=; b=r5+iPrY6AhzjpjurjSM7DhmEjmObrZKdbEt8pA6zkNAOxFg8nG/IP7whfEYjWldSoF pRRsEikTUvkbI+ear6Z/MRBl3hBuKfGxn28O80ERtIB2VzQdYczUFt4tR3AD+YE5KgdF rZttcjocc6dJQxqt7WkY3PtY5lkXHoG9dxp848A9DBcJE7W5A+NsNGG+8iNZGdhbuFC+ C645NCJaw4pGM65dBj1Dl4ez/9PFiM63+XJYaHXZ5/uiKNNPHfQ55Cb3OD+uAUg4h/V4 kH+G7Nd2pY/MWKB49jXyJawNnuHBElxQIIy8ZanXgV26GkbAyN15i7ShgSl5JgmD5OS6 6fJg== MIME-Version: 1.0 Received: by 10.152.110.74 with SMTP id hy10mr14066795lab.54.1354645447587; Tue, 04 Dec 2012 10:24:07 -0800 (PST) Sender: vrwmiller@gmail.com Received: by 10.112.3.68 with HTTP; Tue, 4 Dec 2012 10:24:07 -0800 (PST) In-Reply-To: References: Date: Tue, 4 Dec 2012 13:24:07 -0500 X-Google-Sender-Auth: 5YMy_9Ww9Isi_v-WdCtXjqoYvgY Message-ID: Subject: Re: gPXE booting FreeBSD? From: Rick Miller To: Daniel Feenberg Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Cc: FreeBSD Questions X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.14 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Tue, 04 Dec 2012 18:24:09 -0000 Hi Dan, On Tue, Dec 4, 2012 at 11:44 AM, Daniel Feenberg wrote: > > > On Tue, 4 Dec 2012, Rick Miller wrote: > >> Hi All, >> >> Does anyone have any experience booting FreeBSD via gPXE and have >> pointers to relevant documentation and/or blog posts? >> > > In the last paragraph of our description of PXE booting FreeBSD: > > http://www.nber.org/sys-admin/FreeBSD-diskless.html > > we report that "gpxelinux did not work for us. (It hangs once a menu item is > selected, or if more than one choice is available)." Have you tried and > gotten better/worse/similar results? Our trial was about a year ago, it > would be worth trying again. Thanks for the reply and link. We've not tried booting FreeBSD from gPXE yet. Our goal is to PXE boot clients into a non-interactive FreeBSD installation. We do this now utilizing pxegrub from Grub2 to pass environment/kernel variables to stage 2 as documented at http://blog.hostileadmin.com/2012/05/04/pxe-booting-into-a-freebsd-installation/ Where $kernel_path is the FreeBSD kernel and $initrd_path is the mfsroot from the release build. The rest of the environment variables are dynamically derived based on data stored in a database for each host. We want to replace pxegrub with gPXE with the hope that we can still pass the environment/kernel variables to stage 2. -- Take care Rick Miller