In a previous post, I summarized an experience with a newfound love – Trustix. Today, I’ll try and detail how to go through this install.
First, There is a special 30 meg network-based installation ISO image for 3.0 in the download area called trustix-3.0-net.i586.iso. It includes the PXEboot support files. However, if you download this file – there is still more you need – specifically pxelinux.0 from the syslinux package. To make things simpler, I have assembled everything needed along with it all in the proper directory structure. It can be downloaded from here.
Now download tftpd32 from here and unzip it to a directory (in this example it has been extracted to c:\util\tftpd. Run tftpd32 from that directory and then this window will appear:
Click on the Settings button at the bottom and this window will appear:
Now with the settings window open – make sure your tftp directory is set in the Base directory field. If this is left blank, it will use the directory the tftpd executable is launched from. Personally, I would create a subdirectory under the dir tftpd is running in called boot and extract the contents of the pxeInstall.zip to there. If you do this, just click the browse button and set your tftp directory appropriately.
Now, you only want to run the TFTP server and the DHCP server. Uncheck any other Server checkboxes under the Global Settings section.
The only other thing that should have to be changed from the default is checking PXE compatibility box under the Advanced TFTP options section. Click on Ok and then back at the main tftpd32 program window, click on the DHCP tab and you will see this:
At a minimum, you would need to set your IP Pool starting address and then in the bootfile field put in pxelinux.0 . All this is assuming the machine you will load with Trustix is on the same subnet as your Windows machine running the tftpd program. Note: Make sure you don’t have any other dhcp servers running on the network segment – otherwise the two will conflict. Temporarily disable any other DHCP services running on firewalls, routers, etc. for the segment being used.
Ok at this point, everything should be a go on the server side. Now, the machine that will get Trustix installed needs to boot up via the network using PXE. There are several different methods of doing this depending on your computer. Most Dell servers for example, have an option to press F12 at the initial BIOS screen to perform a PXE boot. Others, you have to go into the bios and change the boot order. Just by putting PXE in the list (and it needs to come before the hard drive) it turns on PXE if it wasn’t already.
Now, if for some reason the computer you have doesn’t support PXE on the network card – just go make and download a floppy image to boot from.
During the pxe boot process, the machine should broadcast for an IP address along with the PXE specific stuff. As long as the tftpd server running on the Windows machine responds – the rest should be a piece of cake! At this point, your installing just like you would while booting from an installation disk. So, to keep from being redundant – just follow the manual to perform the actual Linux installation.