Ubuntu 9.10 PXE Boot

Ubuntu 9.10 uses initrd.lz instead of initrd.gz, so PXE booting like you did in previous versions does not work.

This article assumes you’ve already downloaded the iso and have a working PXE boot server.

First, copy the contents of the iso to a directory we can work with


mkdir /tmp/910

mount -o loop ubuntu-9.10-desktop-i386.iso /tmp/910

cp -r /tmp/910 /tftpboot


Convert initrd.lz to initrd.gz


cd /tftpboot/910/casper

mkdir initrd

cp initrd.lz initrd

cd initrd

lzma -dc -S .lz initrd.lz | cpio -id

rm initrd.lz

find . | cpio --quiet --dereference -o -H newc | gzip -9 > initrd.gz

cp initrd.gz /tftpboot/910/casper


Now add the appropriate lines to pxelinux (Example: /tftpboot/pxelinux.cfg/default)


LABEL Ubuntu 9.10 i386 Unmodified Livecd
KERNEL 910/casper/vmlinuz
APPEND root=/dev/nfs boot=casper netboot=nfs nfsroot=192.168.0.1:/home/tftpboot/910 initrd=910/casper/initrd.gz quiet splash --


Make sure /tftpboot is shared via nfs; in /etc/exports add the following line


/tftpboot/910 192.168.0.0/24(rw,async,no_subtree_check)


Reload the NFS server

/etc/init.d/nfs-kernel-server reload