RHEL5 Installation Guide - 33.3. Adding PXE Hosts

33.3. Adding PXE Hosts

After configuring the network server, the interface as shown in Figure 33.1, “Add Hosts” is displayed.

Add Hosts

Figure 33.1. Add Hosts

The next step is to configure which hosts are allowed to connect to the PXE boot server. For the command line version of this step, refer to Section 33.3.1, “Command Line Configuration”.

To add hosts, click the New button.

Add a Host

Figure 33.2. Add a Host

Enter the following information:

Hostname or IP Address/Subnet — The IP address, fully qualified hostname, or a subnet of systems that should be allowed to connect to the PXE server for installations.
Operating System — The operating system identifier to install on this client. The list is populated from the network install instances created from the Network Installation Dialog .
Serial Console — This option allows use of a serial console.
Kickstart File — The location of a kickstart file to use, such as https://server.example.com/kickstart/ks.cfg . This file can be created with the Kickstart Configurator . Refer to Chapter 31, Kickstart Configurator for details.

Ignore the Snapshot name and Ethernet options. They are only used for diskless environments.

33.3.1. Command Line Configuration

If the network server is not running X, the pxeboot utility, a part of the system-config-netboot package, can be used to add hosts which are allowed to connect to the PXE server:

pxeboot -a -K 
<kickstart>
 -O 
<os-identifier>
 -r 
<value>
 
<host>

The following list explains the options:

-a — Specifies that a host is to be added.

-K <kickstart> — The location of the kickstart file, if available.

-O <os-identifier> — Specifies the operating system identifier as defined in Section 33.2, “PXE Boot Configuration”.
-r <value> — Specifies the ram disk size.
<host> — Specifies the IP address or hostname of the host to add.

For more information on command line options available for the pxeboot command, refer to the pxeboot man page.