Anyone got pxe ramboot working?

Our goal is to have an installed network image of Clear Linux that loads over the network (using PXE such as iPXE) into RAM on a server. (there will be several hundred of these servers).

Thus no OS will be physically installed on the locally attached server disks.

I know there is the “Live” images, however these appear to be for a different use case. That is, installing onto local hardware.

This seems to be quite a challenge so far with initramfs and single user mode issues.

Server-side PXE (iPXE) worked OK, but the client could not setup network with initrd image from the Clear Linux live-server CD in single-user mode. At that moment I figured out Clear Linux doesn’t include any DHCP client binary outside of multi-user dependant NetworkManager or systemd-networkd. After a lot of attempts to gain such a binary I gave up and started working on multi-user initrd image.

Did you follow the process introduced here?
https://docs.01.org/clearlinux/latest/get-started/ipxe-install.html

Yes of course. However that guide is about PXE boot installers. As mentioned above, what I’m trying to do is have ramboot/initramfs setup so that I boot a network image direct into a diskless server. IE it’s already installed on the image and runs in RAM

the client could not setup network with initrd image from the Clear Linux live-server CD in single-user mode. ~~~ I gave up and started working on multi-user initrd image.

If they mean
-network between PXE server and clients (diskless servers) is established,
-installation image is also downloaded from the server to clients,
-but required packages and configuration are missed,

I suppose “bundle:” and “post-install” section in YAML may support moving forward
Sorry, I might be out of line in this case.

https://docs.01.org/clearlinux/latest/get-started/install-configfile.html

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Thanks for the suggestions @espio999 . Happy to report we have a diskless rambooted pxe booted Clear Linux image running :). This is an installed image ready to go to work and booted entirely into ram, not a live installer. Subtle difference

So… everything works, but we had to use initramfs in multi-user mode fwiw. In case anyone else wants to go down this path.

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