How to setup iPXE on Windows server?

[wilber82]

Hello everyone, I'm new in iPXE, I'm using PXELINUX on a Windows 2003 Server now.

There is a blue PXE screen comes up when client boot up via PXELINUX, I'm able to customize the PXE menu.
I can boot up to Linux, WINPE1.0, WINPE2.0, WINPE3.0 via PXELINUX.

Does anybody have similar experience?

My question is:
1. How to configure iPXE on Windows server?
2. Is it possible to boot up WINPE2.0, WINPE3.0 via iPXE without WINDOWS BOOT MANAGER? ( We have issue to boot up WINPE2.0 & 3.0 directly via PXELINUX, so we use AIK generate WIM file first and boot up these kind of WIM images via WINDOWS BOOT MANAGER).

[MultimediaMan]

You can boot WinPE1.6, WinPE2.0 and WinPE3.0/3.1 via pxelinux.0

Boot Script Syntax:

Code:

DEFAULT      /bin/vesamenu.c32

PROMPT       0

MENU MARGIN 10

MENU ROWS 16

MENU TABMSGROW 21

MENU TIMEOUTROW 26

MENU COLOR BORDER 30;44         #20ffffff #00000000 none

MENU COLOR SCROLLBAR 30;44      #20ffffff #00000000 none

MENU COLOR TITLE 0              #ffffffff #00000000 none

MENU COLOR SEL   30;47          #40000000 #20ffffff

MENU BACKGROUND /Backgrounds/PXE_splash.png

MENU TITLE PXE Boot Menu

TIMEOUT 60



LABEL LOCAL

        MENU LABEL Boot Local HDD

        MENU DEFAULT

    LOCALBOOT 1

LABEL DaRT_v7_0

    MENU LABEL 64Bit DaRT Rescue Environment        

    KERNEL pxeboot.0

LABEL WinPE_2

    MENU LABEL WinPE v1.6 SM-Processor ISO

    KERNEL /bin/memdisk raw
    INITRD /Images/ISOs/pe2k5_smp.iso

I have not been able to get an iSCSI ISO Boot to succeed... as near as I can tell, the Kernel for the PE Operating System re-initializes the hardware during loading, and "loses" the connection.

One things I have not fully explored are the various memdisk options using WinPE ISOs (I know for sure the "RAW" option is a no go)...

Example:

KERNEL /bin/memdisk raw Does not work!!!

The trouble with those, again, is the hardware detection... It would not be very difficult to recode the PE bootloader to be compatible, it is just getting Microsoft to see the value in doing so. To be fair, a lot of non-Redhat-Based distros have problems using an ISO SANBOOT; those that do succeed tend to be the netboot ISOs.... they are small and light and generally load the data from the ISO to memory before executing it, by design (which is probably how Microsoft would recode PE). iPXE to these small images is essentially ignored or passed onto something like Anaconda for the actual OS Installer. It really is a case of the installers not being ready for what iPXE brings to the table.