9 Preparing the Boot of the Target System #

Log in as root.

Start YaST › Network Services › TFTP Server and install the requested package.

Click Enable to make sure that the server is started and included in the boot routines. No further action from your side is required to secure this. xinetd starts tftpd at boot time.

Click Open Port in Firewall to open the appropriate port in the firewall running on your machine. If there is no firewall running on your server, this option is not available.

Click Browse to browse for the boot image directory. The default directory /srv/tftpboot is created and selected automatically.

Click Finish to apply your settings and start the server.

Log in as root and install the packages tftp and xinetd.

Modify the configuration of xinetd located under /etc/xinetd.d to make sure that the TFTP server is started on boot:

1. If it does not exist, create a file called tftp under this directory with touch tftp. Then run chmod 755 tftp.

2. Open the file tftp and add the following lines:

   service tftp
   {
           socket_type            = dgram
           protocol               = udp
           wait                   = yes
           user                   = root
           server                 = /usr/sbin/in.tftpd
           server_args            = -s /srv/tftpboot
           disable                = no
   }

3. Save the file and restart xinetd with systemctl restart xinetd.

Create a structure in /srv/tftpboot to support the various options.

root # mkdir -p /srv/tftpboot/BIOS/x86
root # mkdir -p /srv/tftpboot/EFI/x86/boot
root # mkdir -p /srv/tftpboot/EFI/aarch64/boot
root # mkdir -p /srv/install/x86/OS_VERSION/SP_VERSION/cd1
root # mkdir -p /srv/install/aarch64/OS_VERSION/SP_VERSION/cd1

Download the DVD ISO images of SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 12 SP5 from the SUSE Web site for all architectures you need.

Mount the ISO files as described in Section 8.6, “Using ISO Images of the Installation Media on the Server”. To have the files available after a reboot, create an entry in /etc/fstab. For a standard installation, only DVD 1 is required.

root # mount -o loop PATH_TO_ISO /srv/install/ARCH/OS_VERSION/SP_VERSION/cd1/

Repeat this step for all required architectures and replace ARCH with x86 or aarch64 and PATH_TO_ISO with the path to the corresponding ISO file.

Copy the kernel, initrd and message files required for x86 BIOS and UEFI boot to the appropriate location.

root # cd /srv/install/x86/OS_version/SP_version/cd1/boot/x86_64/loader/
root # cp -a linux initrd message /srv/tftpboot/BIOS/x86/

Ensure that the path /srv/install is available via NFS. For details, see Section 8.2, “Setting Up an NFS Repository Manually”.

Copy pxelinux.0 into the TFTP folder and prepare a subfolder for the configuration file.

root # cp /usr/share/syslinux/pxelinux.0 /srv/tftpboot/BIOS/x86/
root # mkdir /srv/tftpboot/BIOS/x86/pxelinux.cfg

Create /srv/tftpboot/BIOS/x86/pxelinux.cfg/default and add the following lines:

default install

# hard disk
label harddisk
 localboot -2
# install
label install
 kernel linux
 append initrd=initrd install=nfs://192.168.1.1:/srv/install/x86/OS_version/SP_version/cd1

display message
implicit 0
prompt 1
timeout 5

Edit the file /srv/tftpboot/BIOS/x86/message to reflect the default file you just edited.

Welcome to the Installer Environment!

To start the installation enter 'install' and press <return>.

Available boot options:
 harddisk   - Boot from Hard Disk (this is default)
 install    - Installation

Copy all required grub2 files for UEFI booting.

root # cd /srv/install/x86/OS_version/SP_version/cd1/EFI/BOOT
root # cp -a bootx64.efi grub.efi MokManager.efi /srv/tftpboot/EFI/x86/

Copy the kernel and initrd files to the directory structure.

root # cd /srv/install/x86/OS_version/SP_version/cd1/boot/x86_64/loader/
root # cp -a linux initrd /srv/tftpboot/EFI/x86/boot

Create the file /srv/tftpboot/EFI/x86/grub.cfg with at least the following content:

set timeout=5
menuentry 'Install OS_version SP_version for x86_64' {
  linuxefi /EFI/x86/boot/linux \
   install=nfs://192.168.1.1/srv/install/x86/OS_version/SP_version/cd1
  initrdefi /EFI/x86/boot/initrd
}

This is done in a way very similar to the x86_64 EFI environment. Start by copying the files required for UEFI booting of a grub2-efi environment.

root # cd /srv/install/aarch64/OS_version/SP_version/cd1/EFI/BOOT
root # cp -a bootaa64.efi /srv/tftpboot/EFI/aarch64/

Copy the kernel and initrd to the directory structure.

root # cd /srv/install/aarch64/OS_version/SP_version/cd1/boot/aarch64
root # cp -a linux initrd /srv/tftpboot/EFI/aarch64/boot

Now create the file /srv/tftpboot/EFI/grub.cfg and add the following content:

menuentry 'Install OS_version SP_version' {
  linux /EFI/aarch64/boot/linux network=1 usessh=1 sshpassword="suse" \
   install=nfs://192.168.1.1:/srv/install/aarch64/OS_version/SP_version/cd1 \
   console=ttyAMA0,115200n8
  initrd /EFI/aarch64/boot/initrd
}

This addition to the configuration file has a few other options to enable the serial console and allow installation via SSH, which is helpful for systems that do not have a standard KVM console interface. You will notice that this is set up for a specific ARM platform.