Monthly Archives: September 2013

Using Serva with an existing PXE server

A long time ago, I set up a PXE server on my network from which I can boot all kinds of Linux tools. It uses the PXELinux boot loader to provide a menu etc. When I came across an article on how to PXE boot a Windows 7 installer using Serva, I looked for a way to integrate that into my existing PXELinux configuration.

Serva takes a Windows installer CD, patches a few files, injects a small tool into the WIM, and fires up a TFTP server and DHCP proxy. It also supports Microsoft’s BINL protocol, which lets the boot loader find out which one of boot menu entries was chosen.

I went to my Linux server and created a folder named Serva in /srv/tftp and Samba shared that. I then mapped it to Z: on a Windows machine, fired up Serva, pointed it at Z: as its TFTP root and checked the TFTP, proxyDHCP and BINL check boxes. After copying the contents of the Windows 7 ISO to a subfolder of /srv/tftp/Serva/WIA_WDS and restarting Serva, the Windows side of it all was done already.

Next, I upgraded my PXELinux to version 6.0.1 and put the following files into my tftp folder: ldlinux.c32 libcom32.c32 libutil.c32 memdisk  menu.c32 netbootme.0 pxechn.c32 pxelinux.0. Then I added the following entry to my pxelinux.cfg/default:

LABEL win7-32-de-install
MENU LABEL Windows 7 i386 DE Installer
KERNEL pxechn.c32
APPEND Serva\WIA_WDS\W7_32_DE\_SERVA_\pxeboot.0 -p Serva\WIA_WDS\W7_32_DE -o 252.s=Serva\WIA_WDS\W7_32_DE\_SERVA_\boot\bcd

-p sets the PXE root path to the install ISO root and -o 252.s sets DHCP option 252 to the full path to the BCD (making all the BINL stuff unnecessary). Two more symlinks and we’re all set:

cd /srv/tftp
ln -s Serva/WIA_WDS .
cd WIA_WDS/W7_32_DE/_SERVA_
ln -s pxeboot.n12 pxeboot.0

Now the only issue that I still have is that the network share path still contains the name of the computer that originally ran Serva. This can be fixed in the BCD using a hex editor.