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How to Install Red Hat Linux via PXE and Kickstart

Alf Wachsmann, alfw@SLAC.Stanford.EDU

v1.6.1, January 23, 2004.
This document describes the installation of a general purpose Red Hat Linux installation infrastructure. It can be used to install a lot (thousands) of Linux machines at the same time. It runs - of course - fully unattended. It uses PXE as network boot component on the nodes. It uses DHCP and TFTP server to get IP addresses and a bootloader to all nodes. It then uses Kickstart to install Red Hat Linux over the net. The main idea behind this installation infrastructure is simplicity, robustness, and performance. The result is that it does not use "vendor-encapsulated-options" in DHCP which tend to be magical and fragile. I have used this infrastructure at SLAC to install 256 nodes in 30 Minutes. (A printable PostScript version of this Howto is available under http://www.SLAC.Stanford.EDU/~alfw/PXE-Kickstart/PXE-Kickstart.ps.)

1. Disclaimer and Copyrights

2. Introduction

3. PXE

4. DHCP

5. Automatic MAC address detection

6. Bootloader

7. TFTP

8. Linux Kernel, Initial RAM disk

9. Kickstart

10. A useful script

11. Putting it all together

12. References

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