PXE Setup Part the First

PXE is conglomeration of tools used to get a new operating system onto a computer. It is based on two protocols: DHCP and TFPT. I used PXER a long time ago at Penguin and have always wanted to set it up for my home personal use. I’m doing that now for my lab. My goal is to first be able to provision virtual machines, and then to provision physical boxes. I need to do a full install of RHEL 7 and RHEL 8, which means I also need Kickstart to automate the install process. I had it working, but after rebooting the NUC it is running on it broke. Here’s my debugging.

Start by booting up the VM. It fails looking like this:

DHCP requiest was not serviced.

So, I jumped to conclusion and though it was the tfpt server. It wasn’t but that needed to be restarted anyway:

# systemctl status tftp
● tftp.service - Tftp Server
   Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/tftp.service; indirect; vendor prese>
   Active: inactive (dead)
     Docs: man:in.tftpd
[root@nuzleaf opt]# systemctl enable tftp
[root@nuzleaf opt]# systemctl start tftp

But the real issue was the dhcpd service:

# systemctl status dhcpd
● dhcpd.service - DHCPv4 Server Daemon
   Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/dhcpd.service; enabled; vendor prese>
   Active: failed (Result: exit-code) since Sat 2020-06-06 14:39:16 EDT; 4 days>
     Docs: man:dhcpd(8)
           man:dhcpd.conf(5)
 Main PID: 1414 (code=exited, status=1/FAILURE)
 
Jun 06 14:39:16 nuzleaf.home.younglogic.net dhcpd[1414]: have been made to the >
Jun 06 14:39:16 nuzleaf.home.younglogic.net dhcpd[1414]: it work better with th>
Jun 06 14:39:16 nuzleaf.home.younglogic.net dhcpd[1414]: 
Jun 06 14:39:16 nuzleaf.home.younglogic.net dhcpd[1414]: Please report issues w>
Jun 06 14:39:16 nuzleaf.home.younglogic.net dhcpd[1414]: https://bugzilla.redha>
Jun 06 14:39:16 nuzleaf.home.younglogic.net dhcpd[1414]: 
Jun 06 14:39:16 nuzleaf.home.younglogic.net dhcpd[1414]: exiting.
Jun 06 14:39:16 nuzleaf.home.younglogic.net systemd[1]: dhcpd.service: Main pro>
Jun 06 14:39:16 nuzleaf.home.younglogic.net systemd[1]: dhcpd.service: Failed w>
Jun 06 14:39:16 nuzleaf.home.younglogic.net systemd[1]: Failed to start DHCPv4 >
lines 1-17/17 (END)

So I started that. But the fact that it failed above is going to come back to haunt me.

 systemctl status dhcpd
● dhcpd.service - DHCPv4 Server Daemon
   Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/dhcpd.service; enabled; vendor prese>
   Active: active (running) since Thu 2020-06-11 13:01:43 EDT; 1s ago
     Docs: man:dhcpd(8)
           man:dhcpd.conf(5)
 Main PID: 80498 (dhcpd)
   Status: "Dispatching packets..."
    Tasks: 1 (limit: 48048)
   Memory: 4.9M
   CGroup: /system.slice/dhcpd.service
           └─80498 /usr/sbin/dhcpd -f -cf /etc/dhcp/dhcpd.conf -user dhcpd -gro>
 
Jun 11 13:01:43 nuzleaf.home.younglogic.net dhcpd[80498]: 
Jun 11 13:01:43 nuzleaf.home.younglogic.net dhcpd[80498]: No subnet declaration>
Jun 11 13:01:43 nuzleaf.home.younglogic.net dhcpd[80498]: ** Ignoring requests >
Jun 11 13:01:43 nuzleaf.home.younglogic.net dhcpd[80498]:    you want, please w>
Jun 11 13:01:43 nuzleaf.home.younglogic.net dhcpd[80498]:    in your dhcpd.conf>
Jun 11 13:01:43 nuzleaf.home.younglogic.net dhcpd[80498]:    to which interface>
Jun 11 13:01:43 nuzleaf.home.younglogic.net systemd[1]: Started DHCPv4 Server D>
Jun 11 13:01:43 nuzleaf.home.younglogic.net dhcpd[80498]: 
Jun 11 13:01:43 nuzleaf.home.younglogic.net dhcpd[80498]: Sending on   Socket/f>
Jun 11 13:01:43 nuzleaf.home.younglogic.net dhcpd[80498]: Server starting servi>
lines 1-22/22 (END)

With those two changes, my VM boots again…until the Kickstart fails. Next up…debugging Kickstart.

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