Please put ipxe.krn to the desktop CD

[Alkis Georgopoulos]

Please put ipxe.lkrn as a boot option in the isolinux menu of the live CDs, so that they can be used to netboot computers, either for network-based installation, or as LTSP clients, etc.

The embedded iPXE script would do this:
1) autoboot (that's an iPXE command)
2) on failure, if no boot server exists on the local network, use http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/netboot/ to download the kernel via http and to start a network installation without downloading or burning mini.iso.

It will only add a few Kb on the .iso, and it will make possible e.g. to reuse the 12.04 CDs to netboot and install 14.04.

I can write the iPXE boot script if there's interest in it.

[Dave Walker (davewalker)]

I think this is a really good idea, and something I have put some consideration into aswell for the server iso.

I'd love to see your iPXE boot script.

Thanks.

[Alkis Georgopoulos (alkisg)]

> I'd love to see your iPXE boot script.

The easiest version is this:
#!ipxe
# We do assume that a DHCP server exists on the local network, e.g. a home router
autoboot

# The rest only happens if no local *boot* server exists
kernel http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/precise/main/installer-i386/current/images/netboot/ubuntu-installer/i386/linux initrd=initrd.gz
initrd http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/precise/main/installer-i386/current/images/netboot/ubuntu-installer/i386/initrd.gz
boot

You save the above as netboot.ipxe, and you load it from isolinux as an initrd of ipxe.lkrn:
linux16 ipxe.lkrn
initrd netboot.ipxe

(from some date in December and on, iPXE supports scripts as initrds)

In the URL above, the webmaster can maintain a "dists/current" symlink so that "precise" isn't hardcoded.

A better idea would be to load pxelinux.0 instead of directly loading a kernel. This would allow for displaying a vesamenu, with which the user could graphically select from any supported distro series.

Unfortunately that would require a public tftp server, which webmasters may not like. Instead, gpxelinux.0 could do the same over http, but I've never used that.

[Alkis Georgopoulos (alkisg)]

Update:
Now ipxe supports loading pxe scripts with menus and everything, so nothing would need to be hardcoded in the live CD. It would just do
kernel http://path/to/boot-script.ipxe

And the boot-script would be updated with new releases and everything.

Additionally, ipxe.efi could also be included in the live CD, so that it does the same thing in newer UEFI-based computers.

[Andreas Hasenack (ahasenack)]

Subscribing foundations

[Brian Murray (brian-murray)]

@Andreas - what was the motivation behind subscribing the Foundations team to this bug report?

[Julian Andres Klode (juliank)]

Certainly iPXE is a bad choice. It seems reasonable to add netboot lines to the grub.cfg using the native support, not iPXE. iPXE is not suitable for signing so it won't boot on most machines without disabling secure boot, which is something you do not want to do.

[Andreas Hasenack (ahasenack)]

> @Andreas - what was the motivation behind subscribing the Foundations team to this bug report?

I don´t recall exactly, probably because it's an early boot issue.