[GLLUG] PXE Debian install problem

Adam Kaminski adam at adamkaminski.com
Sat Jan 11 15:26:55 EST 2014


No problem :D

If your router is configured for 192.1681.1 and you are using the 192.168.1.0/24 range already at home. You’ll need to configure on the PXE boot host - eth1 to use something else, such as 192.168.2.0/24.  The guest machine that will be PXE booted will need an IP in the 192.168.2.0/24 range also. The host configured with both subnets will be performing NAT and keeping track of connections.  While twice NAT is not ideal for production, it should be fine for this project. If you run into any issues let me know.

-- 
Adam Kaminski

On January 11, 2014 at 9:18:05 AM, J Neveau (neveauj at gmail.com) wrote:

Thanks for that information, Adam.  I've never done much reading on iptables as I've never had the need for it in the past.

I may still hook those two machine back together and give it a try, just for the sake of getting it to work.

So, I'll have to assign and IP address to the client machine that is the same subnet as the IP address that the host machine gets from the router?? i.e. - 192.168.1.X
The router wont have an issue with that, simply because it is only seeing the traffic as coming from the connected machine? Is that correct?

And I like that avatar photograph!  


On Sat, Jan 11, 2014 at 12:04 AM, Adam Kaminski <adam at adamkaminski.com> wrote:
If I followed along in this thread,

You’ll need to enable ip forwarding on the box you want to send traffic through,

echo 1 > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/ip_forward

iptables -t nat -A POSTROUTING -o eth0 -j MASQUERADE
iptables -A FORWARD -i eth0 -o eth1 -m state --state RELATED,ESTABLISHED -j ACCEPT
iptables -A FORWARD -i eth1 -o eth0 -j ACCEPT

This assumes that eth0 is the outbound interface and eth1 will need to be configured with a private address/range such as 192.168.1.0/24.  The host connected to eth1 will need to be configured in the same range as eth1 on host acting as gateway 192.168.1.0/24

The pxe boot daemon would most likely just need to be configured to listen on eth1 and would still be able to pxe boot the host and forward traffic if the client needed to reach the internet.

-- 
Adam Kaminski

On January 10, 2014 at 11:00:22 PM, J Neveau (neveauj at gmail.com) wrote:

Thanks for the suggestions, guys!  

I was thinking of IP-tables too.  I know it needs some sort of forwarding of the traffic from the TFTP server to the main NIC that goes to the router.  Technical reading for another time, I suppose.

My plan was to use this very out-dated machine to simply play internet radio streams via the console given that it uses very little energy.  I like having background music in my house when I'm home 
but I can absolutely no longer listen to any commercial radio stations; the advertising and yackity-yack is mind-numbing...that's an entirely different conversation! 

I put the Debian network install disk ISO on to my USB flash drive and did a base install.  Building the rest from that point without the xorg and all of that stuff.

Cheers...




On Fri, Jan 10, 2014 at 7:46 PM, Nick Campbell <campbellnick000 at gmail.com> wrote:
Greetings,

With the configuration you described here you'd probably want to look at iptables on the host machine for all of the forwarding-fu.  It's as not difficult as it sounds but it can get somewhat confusing.  I've never personally attempted it with a direct connection to the client but it *shouldn't* be much different.

It is a tad overkill in your situation but If you still want to give it a shot I'd be happy to help you try to get it working once I am back at a keyboard (software keyboards are an exercise in insanity).  If you would still like to give it a go let me know.

Additionally,  hello GLLUG list! :)

--
Nick Campbell
https://squirreltelepathy.info

On Jan 10, 2014 4:13 PM, "J Neveau" <neveauj at gmail.com> wrote:
Well, it's one of those things where I don't "have" to use a PXE boot.  But I just wanted to see if I could figure out how to do it using this machine:

http://www.fic.com.tw/product/iona603.aspx  obviously, no optical drive.  I was able to squeeze a 60gigabyte laptop IDE drive into it though!

All of the stuff I've been finding online is for configuring the client machine (target of install) with it being a part of the regular network, i.e.-attached
to the router like the other machines, including the one with the boot image files and such.

My configuration was to have the client machine directly attached to the host machine (via eth0)  which was then attached to the router for web access
(via eth1).  The host machine has two NICs built onto the motherboard.

Unfortunately, with my limited networking knowledge (enough to get myself into trouble) I was not able to figure out how to use the host machine not only as
the PXE boot host with the install files, but also the bridge to allow the client doing the Debian install to have internet access to complete the installation via
a mirror.

I ended up just using a Debian installation ISO on a 1 gigabyte USB flash memory stick  and ran the network cable direct to the router.  So far, so good. If I
can get basic Debian install on the AMD Geode, I want to try building a cut-down, streamlined kernel for it; again, just to see if I can get it to work.

I didn't want to get too carried away with my workstation machine (host) as I mainly use it to edit video/audio; no telling what I might have done had I started trying to
set up a mirror on that machine for the client to use....eek.

Thanks for the suggestions, though.  I appreciate the input!




On Fri, Jan 10, 2014 at 3:22 PM, Patrick Goupell <patrick at upmerchants.com> wrote:

On 01/09/2014 10:05 PM, J Neveau wrote:
Greetings everyone,

**initial disclaimer; new to this stuff, not good with networking**

I was able to get a PXE boot started for a Debian installation on an AMD Geode machine.  The installer begins fine and it gets to the point of asking for a mirror to use for installation packages. I select the main Debian mirror.  This is where it fails as it seems unable to access the internet.  Alt-F4 shows messages on the client ending with:


Do you have to do a PXE boot?

Can you boot an ISO image and install from that?

After the install then do the final setup  for what you need.

--
Patrick Goupell

Are you free?  Find out at http://www.sedm.org/
Income taxes?  Find out at http://www.whatistaxed.com


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