Installing RedHat / Fedora / CentOS over the network using pxelinux is pretty straightforward. But installing Windows with pxelinux is a bit harder (what a suprise…)
Setup
My setup contains the following systems:
- Windows 7 (x64)
- CentOS 6 (x64)
- 1 VM running on VMware Workstation, able to boot from the same network as CentOS 6 server
Preparing an Windows PE image
First you need a valid Windows P(re) E(xecute) image, this requires you to download the Windows Automated Installation Kit (AIK). Be warned though, it’s a huge download…
Once you have to download you can install the AIK, run StartCD.exe from the cd and click on Windows AIK Setup
After installation you can start the Deployment Tools Command Prompt, it should be in your start menu under Microsoft Windows AIK
Please note that you need to run this under Administrator Privileges (right click –> run as administrator)
Run the following commands to create a WinPE image:
> set WAIKPath=%ProgramFiles%\Windows AIK
> set PEPath=C:\WinPE
> set BootName=windows7-x64
> set TFTPPath=C:\tftp\%BootName%
> set BCDStore=%TFTPPath%\BCD
> set arch=amd64
> copype %arch% %PEPath%
> imagex /mountrw winpe.wim 1 mount
> mkdir %TFTPPath%
> copy mount\Windows\Boot\PXE\* %TFTPPath%
> copy "%WAIKPath%\Tools\PETools\%ARCH%\boot\boot.sdi" %TFTPPath%
> copy winpe.wim %TFTPPath%
> mkdir %TFTPPath%\Fonts
> copy mount\Windows\Boot\Fonts\wgl4_boot.ttf %TFTPPath%\Fonts
> cd mount\Windows\System32
> bcdedit -createstore %BCDStore%
> bcdedit -store %BCDStore% -create {ramdiskoptions} /d "Ramdisk options"
> bcdedit -store %BCDStore% -set {ramdiskoptions} ramdisksdidevice Boot %BootName%
> bcdedit -store %BCDStore% -set {ramdiskoptions} ramdisksdipath \%BootName%\boot.sdi
> bcdedit /store %BCDStore% /create /d "Windows 7 Install Image" /application osloader
The entry {c9e1cba0-d192-11e0-b6ab-001d60aeed1b} was successfully created.
> set GUID={c9e1cba0-d192-11e0-b6ab-001d60aeed1b}
> bcdedit -store %BCDStore% -set %GUID% systemroot \Windows
> bcdedit -store %BCDStore% -set %GUID% detecthal Yes
> bcdedit -store %BCDStore% -set %GUID% winpe Yes
> bcdedit -store %BCDStore% -set %GUID% osdevice ramdisk=[boot]\%BootName%\boot.wim,{ramdiskoptions}
> bcdedit -store %BCDStore% -set %GUID% device ramdisk=[boot]\%BootName%\boot.wim,{ramdiskoptions}
> bcdedit -store %BCDStore% -create {bootmgr} /d "Windows 7 Boot Manager"
> bcdedit -store %BCDStore% -set {bootmgr} timeout 30
> bcdedit -store %BCDStore% -set {bootmgr} displayorder %GUID%
> bcdedit -store %BCDStore%
> cd %PEPath%
> imagex /unmount mount
The GUID you get on line 23 is unique, so don’t blindly copy/paste line 24.
If nothing went wrong you have a Windows 7 PXE image configured in %TFTPPath% (in my case c:\TFTP\windows7-x64).
Copy this directory to your linux server, I placed it in /var/lib/tftpboot/images/
Install required software
You will need to install the following software:
[root@stargate ~]# yum -y install dhcp tftp-server xinetd samba syslinux
Configure TFTP
Create a tftp-remap file
[root@stargate ~]# cat > /var/lib/tftpboot/tftp.remap<<EOF rg \\ / ir ^Boot/ images/windows7-x64/ ir ^/Boot/ images/windows7-x64/ ir ^windows7-x64/ images/windows7-x64/ ir ^/windows7-x64/ images/windows7-x64/ re ^bootmgr\.exe images/windows7-x64/bootmgr.exe EOF
NOTE: A very big disadvantage is that Windows always looks in /Boot directory on the TFTP server. Which implies using different processors (32 and 64 bit) is impossible.
Place the Windows PXE image directory in the right directory, and reset the permissions, and create some symlinks
[root@stargate ~]# mv ~richard/windows7-x64 /var/lib/tftpboot/images/
[root@stargate ~]# chown -R root: /var/lib/tftpboot/images/windows7-x64/
[root@stargate ~]# find /var/lib/tftpboot/images/windows7-x64 -type d -exec chmod 755 "{}" \;
[root@stargate ~]# find /var/lib/tftpboot/images/windows7-x64 -type f -exec chmod 644 "{}" \;
[root@stargate ~]# ln -s pxeboot.n12 /var/lib/tftpboot/images/windows7-x64/startrom.0
[root@stargate ~]# ln -s winpe.wim /var/lib/tftpboot/images/windows7-x64/boot.wim
Edit /etc/xinet.d/tftp and set:
service tftp
{
socket_type = dgram
protocol = udp
wait = yes
user = root
server = /usr/sbin/in.tftpd
server_args = -s /var/lib/tftpboot -m /var/lib/tftpboot/tftp.remap -vvv
disable = no
per_source = 11
cps = 100 2
flags = IPv4
}
Make sure you set the server_args and disable on no.
Copy the required syslinux files to the tftp root directory
rpm -ql syslinux | grep -e '/pxelinux.0' -e '/menu.c32' | while read FILE; do cp -a "$FILE" /var/lib/tftpboot/; done
And create the default PXE configuration
[root@stargate ~]# mkdir -p /var/lib/tftpboot/pxelinux.cfg
[root@stargate ~]# cat > /var/lib/tftpboot/pxelinux.cfg/default<<EOF
DEFAULT menu
PROMPT 0
MENU TITLE pxeBoot | http://www.falsyana.com
TIMEOUT 200
TOTALTIMEOUT 600
ONTIMEOUT local
LABEL local
MENU LABEL (local)
MENU DEFAULT
LOCALBOOT 0
LABEL Windows 7
MENU LABEL Windows 7 PE (x64)
KERNEL windows7-x64/startrom.0
MENU end
EOF
Configure DHCP
Edit /etc/dhcp/dhcpd.conf, change the ip’s to your own range:
ddns-update-style interim;
ignore client-updates;
authoritative;
subnet 172.24.4.0 netmask 255.255.255.0 {
next-server 172.24.4.254;
filename "pxelinux.0";
range dynamic-bootp 172.24.4.10 172.24.4.20;
default-lease-time 28800;
max-lease-time 86400;
}
Configure SAMBA
The installation files of windows must be presented to the client over Samba (/CIFS). Now since my Linux server doesn’t has a cd/dvd drive I made an iso and uploaded it to my server 
Mount the ISO and copy the files to an appreciate folder
[root@stargate ~]# mount -o loop /data/samba/applications/Microsoft\ windows\ Server\ 2008\ R2\ Enterprise\ -\ SP1\ Integrated.iso /mnt/ [root@stargate ~]# mkdir -p /media/os-install-tree/Microsoft-Windows-Server-2008-R2-Enterprise-x64 [root@stargate ~]# rsync -ar --progress /mnt/* /media/os-install-tree/Microsoft-Windows-Server-2008-R2-Enterprise-x64/ [root@stargate ~]# umount /mnt
And finally configure samba, add the following section to /etc/samba/smb.conf:
[PXE$]
comment = "Installation trees"
path = /media/os-install-tree/
guest ok = yes
writable = no
Start it up
Now start all our services and make them start after a reboot
for SERVICE in dhcpd smb xinetd; do chkconfig $SERVICE on service $SERVICE restart done
And start your VM to boot from the network, you will get the following menu:
Start the Windows 7 PE, it will take some time to start (give it a minute or 3).
And you will end up with a dosbox, yes that’s it…
Here you can mount the installation tree and start the installer:
> net use z: \\172.24.4.254\pxe$ > z: > cd Microsoft-Windows-Server-2008-R2-Enterprise-x64 > setup.exe
Custom scripts
There is the ability to run some automatic scripts (for example mount the samba share). There is a file called \windows\system32\startnet.cmd in the winpe.wim file. You can edit this as you please. For example to automatic mount my pxe$ share I would do the following:
* Start the Deployment Tools Command Prompt (as administrator)
> cd \WinPE > imagex /mountrw winpe.wim 1 mount
Now you can edit the file WinPE\mount\windows\system32\startnet.cmd that it looks like
wpeinit @net use z: \\172.24.4.254\pxe$ @echo You can find the installation tree's on Z:\
After you are done with editing the file you can go back to the Deployment Tools Command Prompt and type
> imagex /unmount /commit mount
And copy the winpe.wim to the Linux server /var/lib/tftpboot/images/windows7-x64/
Windows XP
If you are trying to install Windows XP you will notice that when you run setup, the install Windows XP is grayed out…
To fix this you need to format the C:\ drive manually. With diskpart you can create the partition, and then you need to run winnt32.exe with some parameters.
diskpart select disk 0 clean create partition primary size=1024 select partition 1 active format exit z: cd microsoft-windows-xp-x64 i386\winnt32.exe /syspart:c:
NOTE:It’s slow…. very slow
