Alan,
After our systems are built, the secondary NIC is connected to a
private network, which doesn't have a PXE-Boot server on it. The private
network is between master and slave pairs, and sometimes it includes
various third-party servers too. The master and slave systems each have
static IP addresses, and neither system is serving as a PXE-Boot or DHCP
server; so the queries during the boot process for a PXE-Boot server
go unanswered.
Our primary NIC is connected to the corporate network, and is
unconcerned about PXE-Boot and DHCP servers that might be present there.
This configuration gives us the option to simply connect the
secondary NIC to a local subnet with a KickStart server, and PXE-Boot
off of it to rebuild the system if we needed to. We've never actually
needed to take advantage of that feature, but it is nice to have.
When we do need to rebuild systems, we actually use a USB DVD-ROM
drive, with a customized bootable CD-ROM image, that uses the current
KickStart script on our production KickStart server. This method is
handy if your subnets support DHCP, using:
boot: linux ks=nfs:<server>:/<path>
Since we've been doing this for nearly three years now, with
various Red Hat releases, I could go on and on about all of the
possibilities.
Sincerely,
John S. Monaco
System Administrator & "Linux Dude"
TI WW MAKE IT
Infrastructure System Engineering and Administration
E-mail: xjmonaco@xxxxxx
Phone: (214) 567-5831
Alan Horn wrote:
Well yes.. but then the system will always attempt to pxeboot. So either
you're going to then disable the dhcp server for that nic, or physically
unplug it, or some other form of intervention ?
The motherboards I use also have two onboard NICs, so I can certainly test
out the same methods you're using.
Ideally, I'd like to flip the bios boot order _from_ the %post phase, but
I'm not sure how doable or portable any method like this would be.
I'd love more details though. Thanks for the response !
Cheers,
Al
On Wed, 22 Dec 2004, John Monaco wrote:
Alan,
We've been using a motherboard which has two on board NICs. We set
the secondary port for PXE enabled in the BIOS, and have it at the top
of the BIOS boot list. This works out pretty well for us.
If you need me to go into further details about this strategy,
please let me know.
Sincerely,
John S. Monaco
System Administrator & "Linux Dude"
TI WW MAKE IT
Infrastructure System Engineering and Administration
E-mail: xjmonaco@xxxxxx
Phone: (214) 567-5831
Alan Horn wrote:
Hi,
I know that some of this is going to be fairly hardware specific, but what
strategies do folks use for flipping boot order back to the primary
ide/scsi system disk after doing a pxeboot install ?
The way I do it right now is :
o Initially enable pxeboot in the bios (if not set)
o Reboot box, go back into bios, set boot order to NIC pxeboot before HDD
o Unattended kickstart install
o Catch install after final reboot and jump into bios to reset boot
order.
Obviously I'd like to do away with the last step to make it truly
unattended after the setup phase.
Any ideas ?
Cheers,
Al
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