ludoplex / mightyboot

The container images of PXE/HTTPBoot Server

mightyboot

Mightyboot is a collection of services to quickly set up a PXE and HTTP(S) Boot server for an isolated network environment. It comprises of 4 services:

• dhcp - DHCP service for IPv4
• dhcp6 - DHCP service for IPv6
• dnsmasq - DNS and tftp services
• lighttpd - HTTP service

All service are run in the host network mode.

Configuration

The related settings are controlled by the env file. There are several environment variables, and the start-up scripts in the services will adjust the config files accordingly. Here are the variables:

• IFACE - which network interface the services should listen to
• IP4_PREFIX - the prefix of IPv4 address of the target interface
• IP6_PREFIX - the prefix of IPv6 address of the target interface
• PXE_URI - the path to the bootloader in the tftp server
• SERVER_NAME - the domain name of the server
• HTTPBOOT_URI - the IPv4 HTTP URI to the UEFI bootloader
• HTTPBOOT6_URI - the IPv6 HTTP URI to the UEFI bootloader
• SERVER_KEY - the encrypt key for HTTPS

Network Interface

Mightyboot assumes the IP addresses of the interface are IP4_PREFIX.1/24 and IP6_PREFIX1/64.

For example, to use mightyboot on eth0 with IP4_PREFIX=192.168.110 and IP6_PREFIX=2001:db8:f00f:cafe::, then the IP addresses of eth0 should be 192.168.110.1/24 and 2001:db8:f00f:cafe::1/64.

DHCP

The ranges of DHCP IP addresses are IP4_PREFIX.100 to IP4_PREFIX.200 and IP6_PREFIX42:10 to IP6_PREFIX42:99. So, the ranges of DHCP IP addresses in the previous example will be 192.168.110.100 to 192.168.110.200 and 2001:db8:f00f:cafe::42:10 to 2001:db8:f00f:cafe::42:99.

PXE Path

Mightyboot mounts data/tftproot as the tftproot for dnsmasq. The user has to install the pxe bootlader in data/tftproot and set PXE_URI properly.

For openSUSE/SLE, we just copy EFI and boot from openSUSE/SLE DVD image to data/tftproot/opensuse, and set PXE_URI as /opensuse/EFI/BOOT/bootx64.efi.

NOTE: Remember to adjust the paths in grub.cfg

DNS

The domain name of the server can be customized with SERVER_NAME. The dnsmasq service will map the default IPv4/IPv6 address to the specified domain name.

HTTP

Mightyboot mounts data/www/htdocs to /srv/www/htdocs for lighttpd service, so the HTTPBoot bootloader has to be installed in data/www/htdocs.

There are 2 HTTPBoot variables: HTTPBOOT_URI for IPv4 and HTTPBOOT6_URI for IPv6. Both of them point to the specified bootloader.

Since HTTP server also can be the installation server of openSUSE/SLE, we can copy everything in the installation DVD to data/www/htdocs/suse and set the URI to "http://SERVER_NAME/suse/EFI/BOOT/bootx64.efi".

NOTE: Remember to adjust the paths in grub.cfg

HTTPS

To enable HTTPS support in mightyboot, you need a server key. Please refer SSL Support for HTTP Server to create a test key if necessary. The server key must contain both the public certificate and the private key.

After creating the server key, copy the server key file to data/lighttpd. Then, assign the file name of the server key to SERVER_KEY. For example:

SERVER_KEY=server.pem

Grub2

There is a grub.cfg example in data in case you need a reference of grub.cfg.

Launch Services

Just make sure that your system already installs docker and docker-compose and run:

$ docker-compose up

This first startup time will be longer since docker-compose has to download and build images for the services. Once the images are cached, it will be much faster.