PXE Server

PXE Server provides a DHCP server with support PXE and network boot, TFTP server and HTTP server (only send static files).

Features

Avalible loaders:

• SYSLINUX (bios, efi)
• IPXE (bios, efi)
• SHIM_GRUB2 (bios, efi with secure boot)
• UEFI_HTTP (efi-only, not tested on real hardware)

Todo

• Rewrite hard-coded dhcp boot filename for support user configuration

Quick start guide

1. Download prepared wwwroot
2. Download minilinux and extract to wwwroot
3. Change loader config:
   • syslinux: pxelinux.cfg\default
   • ipxe: boot.ipxe (it is text script)
   • SHIM GRUB2: grub\grub.cfg
   • EFI HTTP: set url to loader (example: http://192.168.1.100:80/shimx64.efi)
4. Configure PXE (pxe.conf)
5. Run server

Setup test enviroment

Tested only on Windows 10 x64.

Test EFI x64 boot:

1. Install TAP-Windows
2. Install QEMU
3. Download OVMF EDK2
4. Run QEMU

 qemu-system-x86_64.exe ^
 -M q35 ^
 -cpu max ^
 -m 512M ^
 -bios RELEASEX64_OVMF.fd ^
 -netdev tap,id=mynet0,ifname=<TAP interface name> -device e1000,netdev=mynet0

Test PXE BIOS boot:

1. Install VirtualBox
2. Create new VM and select network boot.
3. Enjoy!

If server not work

Check your firewall and open ports:

• UDP: 67, 69
• TCP: 80

On Windows:

 netsh advfirewall firewall add rule name="PXE DHCP" dir=in action=allow protocol=UDP localport=67
 netsh advfirewall firewall add rule name="PXE DHCP" dir=out action=allow protocol=UDP localport=67 
 netsh advfirewall firewall add rule name="PXE TFTP" dir=in action=allow protocol=UDP localport=69
 netsh advfirewall firewall add rule name="PXE TFTP" dir=out action=allow protocol=UDP localport=69 
 netsh advfirewall firewall add rule name="PXE HTTP" dir=in action=allow protocol=TCP localport=80
 netsh advfirewall firewall add rule name="PXE HTTP" dir=out action=allow protocol=TCP localport=80

Notes

1. How create grub2 pxe loader: grub-mkimage -d /usr/lib/grub/i386-pc/ -O i386-pc-pxe -p "(pxe)/grub" -o grub2.pxe pxe tftp pxechain boot http linux

2. How work shim? Shim not work on http. I use signed shim from ubuntu 20.04. Its pre-compiled with hard-coded filename "grubx64.efi". So I can't set http path. Only work with tftp.

3. Memdisk not work in EFI.

4. Grub loopback can't loop ISO over HTTP :)

5. IPXE sometimes slow downloading over HTTP (maybe bug?)

List of other open source projects used

• DHCPServer
• Tftp.Net
• Syslinux
• IPXE
• GRUB2
• UEFI SHIM Loader
• Minimal Linux and Minimal Linux Live

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License - see the LICENSE file for details