Recent days we get the announcement about releasing Raspberry Pi 3. Those of you
who play with embedded systems or just try to make things probably still got
good old Raspberry Pi (1). Because during time old platforms loose value as
potential candidate for new projects I decided to sacrifice my old RPi and make
test server from it.
One of my customer required testing his software against PXE server with various
configurations. I realized that using my home network with my TP-Link router I
have no way to create such configuration on server machine I usually use. I
would need to connect directly to server and with one Ethernet port this was not
the solution for me. My other platforms like A20 boards, Odroid or RPi2 are
occupied by some projects. I recall that I have old RPi that can be used for
that purpose.
Configuration described below is very limited because it test just PXE booting,
there is no outside world connection. This connection can be added by adding
wifi dongle to Raspberry Pi and modifying iptables and routing.
Prerequisites
- download recent Raspberry Pi
image and flash it to SD
card. I used Raspbian Jessie Lite.
- if you don’t have free keyboard and HDMI monitor use UART to connect serial
console - you can use this post, if
you don’t know how to connect it
- flash recent iPXE to your hardware or use what is already provided by vendor
Raspbian Jessie Lite - initial setup
Setup TFTP
Install server TFTP:
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sudo apt-get install tftpd-hpa
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Change configuration according to your needs. My looks like that:
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# /etc/default/tftpd-hpa
TFTP_USERNAME="tftp"
TFTP_DIRECTORY="/srv/tftp"
TFTP_ADDRESS="0.0.0.0:69"
#TFTP_OPTIONS="--secure"
TFTP_OPTIONS=""
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Download netboot files for Debian, which we will use for testing purposes:
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wget http://ftp.nl.debian.org/debian/dists/jessie/main/installer-i386/current/images/netboot/netboot.tar.gz
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Unpack netboot package in /srv/tftp:
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cd /srv/tftp
sudo tar xvf /path/to/netboot.tar.gz
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Setup udhcpd
Install udhcpd and remove conflicting packages:
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sudo apt-get install udhcpd
sudo apt-get remove isc-dhcp-client
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At the end of /etc/udhcpd.conf add:
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siaddr 192.168.0.1
boot_file /srv/tftp/pxelinux.0
opt dns 192.168.0.1 192.168.10.10
option subnet 255.255.255.0
opt router 192.168.0.1
opt wins 192.168.0.1
option dns 129.219.13.81
option domain local
option lease 864000
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You can also assign client MAC to given IP address by adding:
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#static_lease 00:60:08:11:CE:4E 192.168.0.54
static_lease <mac> <ip>
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Comment DHCPD_ENABLE in /etc/default/udhcpd:
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# Comment the following line to enable
# DHCPD_ENABLED="no"
# Options to pass to busybox' udhcpd.
#
# -S Log to syslog
# -f run in foreground
DHCPD_OPTS="-S"
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Change eth0 configuration to static IP:
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auto eth0
iface eth0 inet static
address 192.168.0.1
netmask 255.255.255.0
gateway 192.168.0.254
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Then reboot device and connect your PXE client device.
Testing PXE server
When device boot press Ctrl-B to enter iPXE shell. If you cannot enter shell
please replace iPXE with recent version using
this instructions.
Entering iPXE you should see something like that:
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iPXE (http://ipxe.org) 00:00.0 C100 PCI2.10 PnP PMMpmm call arg1=1
pmm call arg1=0
+DFF490B0pmm call arg1=1
pmm call arg1=0
+DFE890B0 C100
iPXE (PCI 00:00.0) starting execution...ok
iPXE initialising devices...ok
iPXE 1.0.0+ (e303) -- Open Source Network Boot Firmware -- http://ipxe.org
Features: DNS FTP HTTP HTTPS iSCSI NFS SLAM TFTP VLAN AoE ELF MBOOT NBI PXE SDI bzImage COMBOOT Menu PXEXT
iPXE>
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First let’s configure interface:
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iPXE> ifconf net0
Configuring (net0 00:0d:b9:3f:9e:58)............... ok
iPXE> dhcp net0
Configuring (net0 00:0d:b9:3f:9e:58)............... ok
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And boot Debian installer:
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iPXE> autoboot
net0: 00:0d:b9:3f:9e:58 using i210-2 on PCI01:00.0 (open)
[Link:up, TX:20 TXE:0 RX:8 RXE:2]
[RXE: 2 x "The socket is not connected (http://ipxe.org/380f6001)"]
Configuring (net0 00:0d:b9:3f:9e:58)............... ok
net0: 192.168.0.194/255.255.255.0 gw 192.168.10.2
net0: fe80::20d:b9ff:fe3f:9e58/64
net1: fe80::20d:b9ff:fe3f:9e59/64 (inaccessible)
net2: fe80::20d:b9ff:fe3f:9e5a/64 (inaccessible)
Next server: 192.168.0.1
Filename: /srv/tftp/pxelinux.0
tftp://192.168.0.1//srv/tftp/pxelinux.0... ok
pxelinux.0 : 42988 bytes [PXE-NBP]
PXELINUX 6.03 PXE 20150819 Copyright (C) 1994-2014 H. Peter Anvin et al+---------------------------------------+
| ^GDebian GNU/Linux installer boot menu |
|---------------------------------------|
| Install |
| Advanced options > |
| Help |
| Install with speech synthesis |
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |
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+---------------------------------------+Press ENTER to boot or TAB to edit a menu entry
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Summary
It took me some time to put this information together an correctly run this
server, so for future reference and for those confused with udhcpd and other
tools configuration this post should be useful. Thanks for reading and as always
please share if you think this post is valuable. If anything is not clear or I
messed something please let me know in comments.
Piotr Król
Founder of 3mdeb, a passionate advocate for open-source firmware solutions, driven by a belief in transparency, innovation, and trustworthiness. Every day is a new opportunity to embody the company's vision, emphasizing user liberty, simplicity, and privacy. Beyond business, a casual chess and bridge player, finding peace in nature and nourishment in theology, philosophy, and psychology. A person striving to foster a healthy community, grounded in collaboration and shared growth, while nurturing a lifelong curiosity and a desire to deeply understand the world.
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