909 replies to this topic

[tintep]

Hi Erwan   I use Dhcpsrv +Tiny server in same nic  I fix ip  192.168.1.5  subnetmask 255.255.255.0   gateway 192.168.1.1  dns 192.168.1.1       Dhcpsrv sent ip to client.    Tiny server sent boot file      I tick proxydhcp.      In XP it work fine

 

But in Win 7   it don't work    dhcpsrv don't sent ip    but router sent ip instead  if I close Tiny server        dhcpsrv can sent ip   if I "ll open Tiny server  it error

 

" cloud not blind socket . address and port are already in use."      I use TIny server 1.0.0.16     win 7 32bit    xp 32 bit        In XP it work fine  Win7 don't work

 

I am sorry for my english  

 

Thank you very much for your Tiny pxe server

[erwan.l]

Hi Tintep,

 

Can you tell me more about dhcpsrv?

Is this a software you run on the same host of Tiny PXE Server, there will be a port conflict (dhcp udp port 67).

You dont need a dhcp server as Tiny PXE Server also runs a dhcp daemon.

 

If you want your router to act as a dhcp server, then tick "proxydhcp" in Tiny PXE Server.

 

In any case, I would recommend not to run an extra dhcp server on your win7 host : you dont need it and it will mess up your plans.

 

Regards,

Erwan

[tintep]

Hi Erwan    This is dhcpsrv (dhcp daemon )      http://www.dhcpserver.de/dhcpsrv.htm         in Tiny PXE Server I tick "proxydhcp"    I run dhcpsrv  on the same host of Tiny PXE Server   that I wonder is in XP  dhcpsrv can send ip  Tiny PXE Server send boot file   but  Win7  dhcpsrv don't send ip  but  router send ip  Tiny PXE Server send boot file.     in Win7 it seems port conflict.      I don't want router  to act as a dhcp server

 

For XP  can run dhcpsrv  on the same host of Tiny PXE Server but Win7 can not.   if in Win 7 I would like to run dhcpsrv + Tiny PXE Server How to?    Thank you very much Erwan 

[erwan.l]

Hi Tintep,

 

TinyPXE Server is also a DHCP server.

 

No need to add an extra DHCP server next to it : if you do so, you will have a port conflict.

Stop dhcpsrv and you should be fine.

 

Regards,

Erwan

[M1cky_B]

Hi,

 

Just found this awesome piece of software, Hopefully going to save me from having to run a virtual linux distribution on my server just to handle pxe boot requests..

 

Just wondering if anyone has got this running with Server 2012, having no luck with starting it up as it complains about not being able to bind a address or something, As a test i used it on my Windows 8 machine and it works perfectly and i got a computer to pxe boot from it..

 

Tried searching for anything using the TFTP ports with no luck, According to google they are maybe 67, 68 and 69. If anyone have a list of all the possible ports this would use so i can go investigate the issue, it would be greatly appreicated.

 

Michael

[M1cky_B]

Figured it out.. Found out Spiceworks uses it's own TFTP server causing a conflict..

 

Now it is running perfectly..

[erwan.l]

Figured it out.. Found out Spiceworks uses it's own TFTP server causing a conflict..

 

Now it is running perfectly..

 

Hi M1cky_B,

 

You should also see what process does what with a netstat -ano on the command line.

 

Regards,

Erwan

[Sfor]

I'm using the TinyProxy to boot SystemRescueCD v. 1.3.5. Everything works correctly with ProxyDHCP switched on. In the final stage both SYSRCD.MD5 and SYSRCD.DAT are downloaded through HTTP, and TinyProxy logs this in the window.

 

But, when I did the same with ProxyDHCP switched off, the SyssteRescueCD stops on downloading SYSRCD.DAT complaining about wrong MD5 checksum. To be more precise:

- SYSRCD.MD5 gets downloaded, but there is no entry in TinyProxy log about it. The length of file is wrong and equal just 14 bytes insteead of 45.

- SYSRCD.DAT gets downloaded, there is no entry in TinyProxy log, the length is too short and equal 14 bytes.

 

It looks like there is something wrong with HTTPd when  ProxyDHCP is disabled.

 

As a temporary fix I did change the HTTP to TFTP in the SystemRescueCD config file. But the SYSRCD.DAT download takes many times slower that way.

Edited by Sfor, 11 February 2014 - 11:51 AM.

[erwan.l]

Hi Sfor,

 

Could it be that you have another http server running on your lan?

 

Can you attach here the content of the downloaded files (14 bytes twice) ?

 

I would be tempted to say (at first look) that if Tiny PXE Server does not report any http request, then these requests end up elsewhere (or nowhere...).

 

Also, since you proxydhcp works fine for you, it means you have another dhcp server on your lan.

Since the pxe script sometimes use {$dhcp-server} variable, you could be ending on your router/dhcp box which could also be a http server.

 

Regards,

Erwan

[Sfor]

I think I found the cause. There is another HTTP server running on the same computer the TinyPXE does. And since it works on the same port, the request goes to a wrong HTTP server.

 

The file with 14 bytes of length had "file not found" text inside.

 

I think the TinyProxy could benefit from some sort of a port availability testing procedure. It would be good if the warning about the port not available (or something like that) was present in the log.

Edited by Sfor, 11 February 2014 - 08:46 PM.

[erwan.l]

Uhm, interesting : so Tiny PXE Server was able to "share" a socket (tcp:80).

Not good as I am usually a rather "exclusive" guy

Will need to review that!

 

Thanks for the feedback thus.

 

Regards,

Erwan

[Sfor]

In my particular case the Clarion Application brooker service is installed on the computer.

 

In the TinyProxy log there was an entry "httpd started...", but there were no "httpd stopped...", after clicking offline.
 

Edited by Sfor, 11 February 2014 - 09:02 PM.

[ericgl]

Hi Erwan,

 

I'm new to PXE booting, and I have a certain scenario that I need to solve:

 

I have a PC with Windows 7 x64.

I have many target machines, and they all have a PXE boot option.

I have a bootable USB flash drive that boots to Ghost.exe in DOS.

 

Up until now, I've been using this bootable USB flash drive connected directly to a target machine.

 

What I would like to do now is:

1. Connect the bootable USB flash drive to my Win7 PC.

2. Start Tiny PXE Server, and select the drive letter of the bootable USB flash drive.

3. Turn on a target machine, which will use PXE to boot directly to this USB flash drive, as if it was directly attached to it.

 

Is that possible?

If so, what options do I need to select in Tiny PXE Server?

 

If it helps, here's a screenshot of what my bootable DOS USB flash drive contains:

 

[erwan.l]

Hi Erwan,

 

I'm new to PXE booting, and I have a certain scenario that I need to solve:

 

I have a PC with Windows 7 x64.

I have many target machines, and they all have a PXE boot option.

I have a bootable USB flash drive that boots to Ghost.exe in DOS.

 

Up until now, I've been using this bootable USB flash drive connected directly to a target machine.

 

What I would like to do now is:

1. Connect the bootable USB flash drive to my Win7 PC.

2. Start Tiny PXE Server, and select the drive letter of the bootable USB flash drive.

3. Turn on a target machine, which will use PXE to boot directly to this USB flash drive, as if it was directly attached to it.

 

Is that possible?

If so, what options do I need to select in Tiny PXE Server?

 

If it helps, here's a screenshot of what my bootable DOS USB flash drive contains:

 

 

Hi,

Tiny PXE Server can help you boot an ISO or a WIM file or disk image.

 

I believe you have a WIM file on your USB stick.

So you would need to add a few extra files and then yes you could boot your target machines with your PXE Server pointing at your USB key.

From top of my head you would need : ipxe bootstrap, wimboot and an ipxe script on your USB root.

 

Is my understanding of your scenario correct then?

 

Regards,

Erwan

[ericgl]

Erwan,

 

There is no WIM file in this USB drive. Had I used a WIM file, I wouldn't need the USB flash drive, I could simply put it somewhere on my HDD.

 

The USB flash drive contains an MS-DOS environment, where I can quickly boot to Ghost.exe and run it on my target machines.

Anyway, I don't think it matters much what's on my USB flash drive. All that matters is that it is bootable.

 

I just wanted to know if I can use Tiny PXE Server to boot a USB flash drive over LAN, instead of physically attaching it to the target machine.

[Sfor]

The answer is both yes and no. It is not possible to boot a USB flash drive over LAN directly. But, it is possible to use some sort of a boot agent over LAN. The agent software would have to download the flash drive image (or file system image) over LAN then to start the DOS from it.

 

The PXE server is just the tip of the iceberg.

Edited by Sfor, 05 March 2014 - 04:54 PM.

[erwan.l]

Actually my answer was more : "yes you can re use files from your usb stick but provided indeed it contains either an iso or wim file".

 

Alternative then could be to use iscsi/aoe pointing to your usb disk plugged onto your pxe+iscsi/aoe server.

This way you may be able to use your usb stick "as is".

 

Or maybe simply make an iso/img out of your usb stick and boot it using ipxe+memdisk for instance?

 

 

/Erwan

[ericgl]

Erwan,

 

Ok, so how do I turn my USB flash drive to ISO or WIM?

 

And after I do that, what settings should I use in Tiny PXE Server?

 

Please guide me with detailed instructions.

Thanks.

[erwan.l]

In 4 steps :

 

1 - I would use clonedisk to turn my USB key into an image file (see link in my signature).

 

2- I would use the following ipxe script (save it to usb.ipxe)

set boot-url http://${next-server}
initrd ${boot-url}/usb.img
kernel ${boot-url}/memdisk
boot

3 - I would put ipxe-undionly.kpxe, memdisk, usb.ipxe and usb.img in the same folder as TinyPXE Server

 

4 - In TinyPXE Server,

     I would choose ipxe-undionly.kpxe as boot file name and usb.ipxe as "filename is user-class=iPXE",

     I would tick HTTPd and optionally proxydhcp if a DHCP server exists on my LAN.

 

Note that all this is from the top of my head right now

I could not test this scenario today.

 

If loading the image fails then we will need to try an iScsi server or AOE server.

Regards,

Erwan

 

EDIT : dont forget #!ipxe as first line in ipxe scripts.

[ericgl]

Thanks, Erwan.

 

I will try your suggestion tomorrow morning, and report back with results.

 

Good night.

[ericgl]

Erwan,

 

CloneDisk v2.0 cannot convert my USB flash drive to WIM. It says "WIM format is for logical drives only".

 

So then I selected RAW, but it started to create a file with exact size of my USB flash drive (8GB).

The files on the flash drive only total ~7MB. Selecting "Skip none partitioned space" didn't help make the IMG file smaller.

 

Is there any way to convert my USB flash drive to a (bootable) ISO / WIM / IMG ??

I can capture my USB flash drive to a .GHO file (Ghost image), which only takes up roughly 3.5MB of space.

 

Actually, instead of waiting for an answer, I tried to PXE boot to a GHO file.

In the script you gave me, I opened the file usb.ipxe and changed the following line

initrd ${boot-url}/usb.img

to

initrd ${boot-url}/test.gho

I copied the file test.gho (which is an image of my bootable flash drive) into the Tiny PXE Server folder.

 

Here's the screenshot on my PC:

 

 

And here's the screenshot on the target machine (I used VirtualBox in this case, but it's the same on a real target machine):

 

 

The machine simply hangs in this state until I power it off.

 

Now, a few questions:

1. Can Tiny PXE Server use a .GHO file to PXE boot? If yes, how to do it?

2. If the answer is "No" to the 1st question - Suppose I did manage to convert my USB flash drive to ISO / WIM / IMG, would Tiny PXE Server succeed in booting it properly?

3. If the answer is "Yes" to the 2nd question - Have you any other idea how to convert my USB flash drive to one of those formats?

 

Thanks in advance 

[Sfor]

1) TinyPXE server does not boot anything. It is just a server.

2) Computers can download from TinyPXE server a code than run it. In TinyPXE server you are just pointing to the file to be downloaded by a remote computer.

3) The code downloaded by the remote computer can download further files, images or whatever. TinyPXE server provides many tools for this code to be able to download things like built in Httpd and Tftpd servers.

 

That's about it. TinyPXE server is just a tool, not a ready to go solution.

[erwan.l]

Hi Sfor,

 

Indeed, I dont pretend TinyPXE Server to be a ready to go solution.

My goal is only to make it easier (and free) for windows users to boot over pxe using different bootstrappers (ipxe, gpxe, syslinux, grub4dos, ntldr, bootmgr, ...) and different protocols (tftp, http, smb, aoe, iscsi, ...) .

 

Ericgl :

You need to convert to a raw (img extension) image but then indeed it will create a file as big as your usb disk.

If it is 8gb, loading it into ram is no longer a solution then.

 

The only alternative I see then is to use AOE or ISCSI : your remtoe machine will consider the hosted (raw) image as a local disk and will boot from it.

 

The ipxe code would be :

set keep-san 1
sanboot aoe:e0.0

There is a windows standalone AOE server named vblade. See this thread.

Vblade is a command line tool. In the thread mentionned, you'll see that I posted a gui for it.

 

Regards,

Erwan

[ericgl]

Erwan,

 

I'm sorry, but I don't quite follow.

Can Tiny PXE Server help me in my specific case, or do I need to use another app?

 

If not, as far as you know, is there a free & portable AoE app, which does not require drivers and/or other software to function?

I just want to give the app as input the drive letter of the USB flash drive, and it would act as if directly attached to the target machine.

Or am I asking too much?

[erwan.l]

experimenting as we speak.

 

make the image file, preparing the AOE server, booting a spare laptop...