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Author Topic: selfcontained tcl image for pxe booting  (Read 2346 times)

Offline errorsmith

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selfcontained tcl image for pxe booting
« on: January 03, 2012, 03:06:36 AM »
Hi

I'd like to create a appliance like tcl remaster for booting via pxe.
I do not want to have any persistance options or the ability to add apps / extensions into the final results of my remaster. After booting the user should only be able to use the preconfigured extensions.

So far i'm able to create a custom remaster fo TinyCore-current.iso. But I'm not able to pxe boot with it, as it drops me onto a console. I tried to boot it with pxelinux. Without success. I understand that there are parts of tcl wich are not directly packed into core.gz. So my question is: How do I convert the .iso into something bootable via pxe but without using nfs or any other secondary network ressource?

with kind regards,
errorsmith

p.s.:
When pasting the configuration of pxelinux into this post, the board complains about external links I'm not allowed to post!? There weren't any external links in my configuration.

Offline curaga

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Re: selfcontained tcl image for pxe booting
« Reply #1 on: January 04, 2012, 02:17:21 PM »
I assume you have enough ram on the clients then? The wiki tells how to extract extensions to the initramfs, and you can also do that via ezremaster (it offers two options for inside the initramfs).
The only barriers that can stop you are the ones you create yourself.

Offline genec

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Re: selfcontained tcl image for pxe booting
« Reply #2 on: January 06, 2012, 09:17:27 PM »
Very easy.  My use of TC already incorporates things like this, even though I'm using ISOLINUX and SYSLINUX primarily.  I find it better (for myself) to reuse the existing core.gz but then add additional .cpio.gz files to extend and alter the existing initrd contents.  Please note you should avoid the leading "/" in Syslinux config paths as that extra character will be in the requested filenames and some daemons (TFTP or HTTP) don't like it.

See http://wiki.tinycorelinux.net/wiki:dynamic_root_filesystem_remastering#create_remaster_content for one example.

As of Syslinux-4.00 (at least), ISOLINUX will utilize syslinux.cfg.  Personally, I use a syslinux.cfg in the root directory of my ISO and USB flash drives which then INCLUDEs other files.

Offline errorsmith

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Re: selfcontained tcl image for pxe booting
« Reply #3 on: January 07, 2012, 02:03:50 AM »
Thanks. This gave me the right direction.
I'm using ezremaster now, with the required extensions loaded "inside initrd on boot". This works fine.

With kind regards,
errorsmith