pxe boot without network client image

[bala guru]

Hi,

In our environment we'd like to have pxeboot image without network client image.Whether it's already available KIWI?  Need to have only ram disk and kernel on tftp server and do netboot in VM and launch shell. Currently we have manually built ram disk and kernel but very much like to know if we can do using KIWI.


Thanks.

[Marcus Schäfer]

yes you can do this with kiwi. I documented a ram only image here
http://doc.opensuse.org/projects/kiwi/doc/#sec.pxe.ram-only-image

It's a bit different from your system because it loads a kernel
and a initrd and the initrd code then deploys the system image
into a ramdisk and switches to it.

iirc you are just using an initrd and work within that system.
You can also do this with the initrd build by kiwi but by
default I don't expose a shell. But you can write a hook script
which just opens a shell. I suggest to use the postnetwork
hook if you plan to work from inside the initrd. How to use
hooks to customize the initrd is documented here:
http://doc.opensuse.org/projects/kiwi/doc/#sec.hooks

my recommendation is not to use the initrd as a system to work
with though

Hope that helps

Regards,
Marcus
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