Install an operating system using PXE booting onto a preboot execution environment (PXE). A PXE boot device allows servers to boot remotely over a network connection, replacing the use of a Compact Disc (CD) or Universal Serial Bus (USB) drive to install an operating system.
From Bare Metal Orchestrator, only the ESXi and RHEL operating systems are currently supported and can be installed onto a PXE boot device.
The steps to install an operating system onto a PXE boot device are similar to installing an operating system onto a server, with the following exceptions:
- When configuring the
site.yaml
file, add a dhcp subnet containing two dhcp pools with the required IP configurations. One pool for PXE boot, and the second pool for the installed Operating System. The PXE boot dhcp pool should contain the attributeallowMembers
with the value of PXEClient. In addition, the following attributes require specific values to enable the use of a PXE boot device:Attribute Value dhcpDeployMode Server vendorClassIdentifier PXEClient bootSize Greater than or equal to 1807 inBandIP Enter the VLAN IP of the site node network interface for which the inband connectivity to the server for the PXE-enabled interface is configured. This differs for each site. See
site_dhcp_pxe.yaml
file in the Samples folder for an example of a site configuration file.
- Upload the ISO image to the web server. For more information about how to upload an ISO image to the web server, see Upload images and binary files to the web server.
- When installing the operating system through a hardware profile and connecting a PXE port to a server, you must ensure that the common port across all servers is connected. For example, the common port integrated nic1 port1 must be connected to all servers.
- When configuring the spec fields for the
server.yaml
,media.yaml
andsite.yaml
files, ensure that the following BIOS attributes are configured with the correct values to enable a PXE boot device:Attribute Value Supported vendors bootMode Uefi or Bios Dell, Supermicro PXEDev1EnDis Enabled Dell, Supermicro PXEDev12EnDis Dell PXEDev3EnDis PXEDev4EnDis pxeDev1Interface The ID of the PXE NIC device. For example: NIC.Integrated.1-1-1 Note: The ID of the PXE NIC device can be found in the list of Network Boot options in the NIC section of the inventory.
Dell, Supermicro pxeDev2Interface Dell pxeDev3Interface pxeDev4Interface operatingsystemname pxe Dell, Supermicro See
site_dhcp_pxe.yaml
,os_install_esxi_pxe.yaml
,os_install_rhel_pxe.yaml
files and theesxipxe.yaml
and therhelpxe.yaml
media files in the Samples folder for an example of files configured for PXE boot.