I'm trying to setup Clonezilla for deployment. This isn't thin client, it's deployment. I want to use gPXE boot on a floppy for client machines that don't have network boot option in BIOS setup. I'm having trouble setting up DHCP.
It turns out PXE is an extension to DHCP. A lot of documentation assumes the boot server is also the DHCP server, and the internet gateway. My home office uses a router, and where I really want to use this has a Linux server with Squid acting as the router with DHCP and proxy server. In both cases the server which will hold disk images is not the router, does not assign IP addresses. There is supposed to be a way to do this, but it isn't working.
In dhcpd.conf, the configuration to assign addresses is:
subnet 192.168.0.0 netmask 255.255.255.0 { range 192.168.0.100 192.168.0.199; }
To accept connections for a specific IP range (say 101 to 109), this is changed to:
subnet 192.168.0.0 netmask 255.255.255.0 { option subnet-mask 255.255.255.0; # I'm not sure why this is here, it appears redundant. option routers 192.168.0.1; # This is the IP address of my D-Link router. next-server 192.168.0.104; # This is the server itself. pool { range 192.168.0.101 192.168.0.109; } }
To support the gPXE floppy, the filename is changed from "pxelinux.0" to "gpxelinux.0".
The problem is it isn't working. The error message from my client machine is "no filename or path". The DHCP protocol is supposed start with the client broadcasting a DHCPdiscover packet, then the router and server both respond with a DHCPoffer. The router responds with standard DHCP packet to offer an IP address, but the server provides an extended DHCPoffer packet to offer PXE service. Somehow the gPXE boot floppy is not seeing the server.
I did try changing it. I set the server to assign IP addresses, and disabled DHCP service on the router. Not something I want to leave in place, but a good test. I was able to boot into Linux on the client machine, but for some reason it didn't start the client for Clonezilla SE (Server Edition). Since I rebooted the server I haven't been able to get DHCP service on the server to work again.
I also have a Clonezilla Live boot CD, but since it runs on the client it will only unicast. To multicast I need Clonezilla SE.
Help. Thanks, Rob Dyck