How to netboot the server installer on amd64¶

amd64 systems boot in either UEFI or legacy (“BIOS”) mode, and many systems can be configured to boot in either mode. The precise details depend on the system firmware, but both modes usually support the “Preboot eXecution Environment” (PXE) specification, which allows the provisioning of a bootloader over the network.

Steps needed¶

The process for network booting the live server installer is similar for both modes and goes like this:

The to-be-installed machine boots, and is directed to network boot.
The DHCP/BOOTP server tells the machine its network configuration and where to get the bootloader.
The machine’s firmware downloads the bootloader over TFTP and executes it.
The bootloader downloads configuration, also over TFTP, telling it where to download the kernel, RAM Disk and kernel command line to use.
The RAM Disk looks at the kernel command line to learn how to configure the network and where to download the server ISO from.
The RAM Disk downloads the ISO and mounts it as a loop device.
From this point on the install follows the same path as if the ISO was on a local block device.

The difference between UEFI and legacy modes is that in UEFI mode the bootloader is an EFI executable, signed so that is accepted by Secure Boot, and in legacy mode it is PXELINUX. Most DHCP/BOOTP servers can be configured to serve the right bootloader to a particular machine.

Configure DHCP/BOOTP and TFTP¶

There are several implementations of the DHCP/BOOTP and TFTP protocols available. This document will briefly describe how to configure dnsmasq to perform both of these roles.

Install dnsmasq with:
```
sudo apt install dnsmasq
```

Put something like this in /etc/dnsmasq.conf.d/pxe.conf:

interface=<your interface>,lo
bind-interfaces
dhcp-range=<your interface>,192.168.0.100,192.168.0.200
dhcp-boot=pxelinux.0
dhcp-match=set:efi-x86_64,option:client-arch,7
dhcp-boot=tag:efi-x86_64,bootx64.efi
enable-tftp
tftp-root=/srv/tftp

Note: This assumes several things about your network; read man dnsmasq or the default /etc/dnsmasq.conf for many more options.

Restart dnsmasq with:
```
sudo systemctl restart dnsmasq.service
```

Serve the bootloaders and configuration.¶

We need to make this section possible to write sanely

Ideally this would be something like:

apt install cd-boot-images-amd64
ln -s /usr/share/cd-boot-images-amd64 /srv/tftp/boot-amd64

Mode-independent set up¶

Download the latest live server ISO for the release you want to install:

wget http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/ubuntu-server/daily-live/current/focal-live-server-amd64.iso

Mount it:

mount ubuntu-19.10-live-server-amd64.iso /mnt

Copy the kernel and initrd from it to where the dnsmasq serves TFTP from:
```
cp /mnt/casper/{vmlinuz,initrd} /srv/tftp/
```

Set up the files for UEFI booting¶

Copy the signed shim binary into place:

apt download shim-signed
dpkg-deb --fsys-tarfile shim-signed*deb | tar x ./usr/lib/shim/shimx64.efi.signed -O > /srv/tftp/bootx64.efi

Copy the signed GRUB binary into place:

apt download grub-efi-amd64-signed
dpkg-deb --fsys-tarfile grub-efi-amd64-signed*deb | tar x ./usr/lib/grub/x86_64-efi-signed/grubnetx64.efi.signed -O > /srv/tftp/grubx64.efi

GRUB also needs a font to be available over TFTP:

apt download grub-common
dpkg-deb --fsys-tarfile grub-common*deb | tar x ./usr/share/grub/unicode.pf2 -O > /srv/tftp/unicode.pf2

Create /srv/tftp/grub/grub.cfg that contains:

 set default="0"
 set timeout=-1
     
 if loadfont unicode ; then
   set gfxmode=auto
   set locale_dir=$prefix/locale
   set lang=en_US
 fi
 terminal_output gfxterm
     
 set menu_color_normal=white/black
 set menu_color_highlight=black/light-gray
 if background_color 44,0,30; then
   clear
 fi
     
 function gfxmode {
         set gfxpayload="${1}"
         if [ "${1}" = "keep" ]; then
                 set vt_handoff=vt.handoff=7
         else
                 set vt_handoff=
         fi
 }
     
 set linux_gfx_mode=keep
     
 export linux_gfx_mode
     
 menuentry 'Ubuntu 20.04' {
         gfxmode $linux_gfx_mode
         linux /vmlinux $vt_handoff quiet splash
         initrd /initrd
 }

Set up the files for legacy boot¶

Download pxelinux.0 and put it into place:

wget http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/eoan/main/installer-amd64/current/images/netboot/ubuntu-installer/amd64/pxelinux.0
mkdir -p /srv/tftp
mv pxelinux.0 /srv/tftp/

Make sure to have installed package syslinux-common and then:

cp /usr/lib/syslinux/modules/bios/ldlinux.c32 /srv/tftp/

Create /srv/tftp/pxelinux.cfg/default containing:

 DEFAULT install
 LABEL install
   KERNEL vmlinuz
   INITRD initrd
   APPEND root=/dev/ram0 ramdisk_size=1500000 ip=dhcp url=http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/ubuntu-server/daily-live/current/focal-live-server-amd64.iso

As you can see, this downloads the ISO from Ubuntu’s servers. You may want to host it somewhere on your infrastructure and change the URL to match.

This configuration is very simple. PXELINUX has many, many options, and you can consult its documentation for more.