How to netboot the server installer on amd64

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It would seem that

We need to make this section possible to write sanely

is longing for a better replacement (this may have been forgotten, and made it into the current LTS server manual).

I think this is supposed to be /etc/dnsmasq.d.

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Hi, after spending the entire evening trying to make pxe server for ubuntu focal server, I think your article is not 100% accurate. I am using HyperV Ver2 Secure boot vritual machines, so after I made the initial config of pxe I struggled with booting ubuntu focal - the most far I could get was “unable to find a medium containing a live file system”. After spending much time experimenting with various configs it downed on me that obviously i need to
change the menu entry in grub.cfg

menuentry 'Ubuntu 20.04' {
        gfxmode $linux_gfx_mode
        linux /boot/casper/vmlinuz ip=dhcp url=http://mirror/focal/ubuntu-20.04.2-live-server-amd64.iso quiet ---
        initrd /boot/casper/initrd
}

Another question I have after working with this a bit. I can see that the ISO gets downloaded 3 times over the network when doing an automated install. Is there a way I can make it not do that?

192.168.1.225 - - [06/Apr/2021:22:09:47 +0000] "GET /ubuntu-20.04.1-live-server-amd64.iso HTTP/1.1" 200 958398464 "-" "Wget"
192.168.1.225 - - [06/Apr/2021:22:13:24 +0000] "GET /ubuntu-20.04.1-live-server-amd64.iso HTTP/1.1" 200 958398464 "-" "Cloud-Init/20.2-45-g5f7825e2-0ubuntu1~20.04.1"
192.68.1.225 - - [06/Apr/2021:22:16:50 +0000] "GET /ubuntu-20.04.1-live-server-amd64.iso HTTP/1.1" 200 958398464 "-" "Cloud-Init/20.2-45-g5f7825e2-0ubuntu1~20.04.1"
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The link to pxelinux.0 is broken. http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/focal/main/installer-amd64/current/legacy-images/netboot/ might work, but it would be better to make sure that a proper file extracted from the release is made available to users.

apt install cd-boot-images-amd64

This only works with Ubuntu 21.04 and above.

Daily server is now https://cdimage.ubuntu.com/ubuntu-server/daily-live/current/lunar-live-server-amd64.iso

Used for to netboot a jammy server.

The instructions extract the kernel in a vmlinuz file but grub.cfg uses vmlinux (z vs x), so either needs to be fixed.

The signed shim is now in ./usr/lib/shim/shimx64.efi I think - at least ./usr/lib/shim/shimx64.efi.signed doesn’t exist anymore.

Also if you want to run this from the serial console, you’ll have to tweak grub.cfg a bit. This worked for me :

set default="0"
set timeout=-1

if loadfont unicode ; then
  set gfxmode=auto
  set locale_dir=$prefix/locale
  set lang=en_US
fi

serial --unit=0 --speed=115200 --stop=1
terminal_output serial
terminal_input serial

#set menu_color_normal=white/black
#set menu_color_highlight=black/light-gray
#if background_color 44,0,30; then
#  clear
#fi

function gfxmode {
        set gfxpayload="${1}"
        if [ "${1}" = "keep" ]; then
                set vt_handoff=vt.handoff=7
        else
                set vt_handoff=
        fi
}

set linux_gfx_mode=text

export linux_gfx_mode

menuentry 'Ubuntu 22.04' {
        gfxmode $linux_gfx_mode
        linux /vmlinuz console=ttyS0,115200n1 root=/dev/ram0 ramdisk_size=1500000 ip=dhcp url=http://10.1.1.1/jammy-live-server-amd64.iso
        initrd /initrd
}

There are netboot tarballs now for newer releases, e.g.:

https://releases.ubuntu.com/23.10/ubuntu-23.10-netboot-amd64.tar.gz
https://cdimage.ubuntu.com/releases/mantic/release/ubuntu-23.10-netboot-arm64.tar.gz

We should document those.

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…and now into the 24.04 timeframe as well.

I’m also interested in this as I intend to point to this section for those interested in install and configure of server distro from one of the Ubuntu image download pages.

wget http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/ubuntu-server/daily-live/current/focal-live-server-amd64.iso

I would recommend we send people to the proper releases page for the stable version of the ISO, not a daily build. Not to mention update focal to noble.