Debuntu

there is many ways of installing Linux. Nowadays, the most common one is probably by using a CD. Download the CD, stick it in your CDRom drive and let’s roll!!!

If you intent to deploy Ubuntu over several computers, this can easily become cumbersome.

This tutorial will explain how to install Ubuntu/Debian through the network using preseed files so you can turn on your computer, walk away and come back later with your fresh install up and running.

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For the purpose of this tutorial, I decided to choose dnsmasq to act as a DNS/DHCP server. The reason behind this is that dnsmasq is simple to configure and does a good job in providing DNS and DHCP services for a small LAN.

2. DHCP server:

The DHCP server is going to be involved twice in this scenario. First, when our client is going to boot on its network interface, the DHCP server is going to provide the client with an IP address to be able to communicate with other servers. Also, on this first contact, the DHCP server is going to supply our client with a filename and a server address where to get the bootloader using TFTP protocol.

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3. TFTP server

There is a couple of tftp server around there. The one chosen for this tutorial is tftpd-hpa does the job.tftpd package could not handle PXE protocol.

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4. PXELinux

PXELinux is a boot loader similar to syslinux. As syslinux is used for booting from a CD, Pxelinux is designed for PXE booting.

To get PXE Boot Loader and anything required to set up a netboot install, you will need to get the archive netboot.tar.gz from ubuntu repositories.

Let’s go to our TFTP server root directory and get PXELinux set up.

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5. Preseed: Installation automation:

Like Red Hat’s kickstart file, Debian based distribution can use a preseed file. The preseed file will contain the different information that the installer will require in order to proceed with the installation.

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