Debian, as usual, has their own way of doing things. But, as usual, they are pretty logical when you figure it out.
When you download a Debian netboot image, it will be a tar.gzip file. Unpacking it into tftp_root on your PXE server sets it up for boot. However, since our goal was to actually have multiple images, we need to do things a little different. I'm assuming you have read PXE Booting and done all the work there to get things up and running.
We have want to build the tree described in PXE Booting, then download the netboot images decompress them, and move the appropriate items into the correct directories. I am lazy so I built this script to do just that, and create some basic menu entries (in default) and add some text to boot.txt.
#! /usr/bin/env bash TFTPDIR=/srv/tftp MENU=$TFTPDIR/boot.txt DEFAULTCONFIG=$TFTPDIR/pxelinux.cfg DEFAULTFILE=$DEFAULTCONFIG/default MIRROR=ftp://ftp.us.debian.org DOWNLOADDIR=/tmp TEMPDIR=$DOWNLOADDIR/working mkdir -p $DEFAULTCONFIG if [ ! -e $DEFAULTFILE ] then echo 'DISPLAY boot.txt' > $DEFAULTFILE echo '' >> $DEFAULTFILE echo 'prompt 1' >> $DEFAULTFILE echo 'timeout 0' >> $DEFAULTFILE echo '' >> $DEFAULTFILE fi if [ ! -e $MENU ] then echo 'Available Boot Options:' > $MENU echo '=======================' >> $MENU echo '' >> $MENU fi for arch in i386 amd64 do for dist in jessie wheezy do echo Setting up $dist, $arch THISDOWNLOAD=$DOWNLOADDIR/$dist/$arch if [ ! -e $THISDOWNLOAD/netboot.tar.gz ] then mkdir -p $THISDOWNLOAD cd $THISDOWNLOAD wget -q $MIRROR/debian/dists/$dist/main/installer-$arch/current/images/netboot/netboot.tar.gz fi if [ -e $TEMPDIR ] then rm -fR $TEMPDIR fi mkdir -p $TEMPDIR cd $TEMPDIR tar -xzf $THISDOWNLOAD/netboot.tar.gz THISINSTALL=$TFTPDIR/debian/$dist if [ -e $THISINSTALL ] then rm -fR $THISINSTALL fi mkdir -p $THISINSTALL mv $TEMPDIR/debian-installer/* $THISINSTALL/ # create an entry in default and menu echo label $dist\_$arch\_install >> $DEFAULTFILE echo "menu label ^Install $dist $arch" >> $DEFAULTFILE echo "kernel debian/$dist/$arch/linux" >> $DEFAULTFILE echo "append vga=normal initrd=debian/$dist/$arch/initrd.gz -- quiet" >> $DEFAULTFILE echo '' >> $DEFAULTFILE echo $dist\_$arch\_install \-\- Install Debian $dist $arch >> $MENU done done
The problem with this code is the menu creation. Debian generally has several levels of menu options depending on what you want to do. This will only do the basic install option, so if you want more (ie, rescue, install with a gui, etc…), you'll need to create those manually.
Debian appears to use the information found at http://www.syslinux.org/wiki/index.php?title=PXELINUX, which discusses pxelinux in detail. This allows for a curses type menuing system, with submenus. However, it results in the menus being stored in numerous files under the boot-screens directory in the installation.
If you only want a few options, without a lot of work, you can enter that directory, find the option you want, then copy/paste the label block into pxelinux.cfg/default (changing the paths, obviously). Otherwise, read the referenced article to build your own menuing system.
NOTE: pxelinux.cfg/ can have many different files in it, and the actions can take place based on criteria of the machine making the connetion, such as MAC address, UUID or IP address (or a portion of it). Again, the documentation at the syslinux web site explains in minute detail. It should be possible, from what I've seen, to modify Debian's menuing tree to be reflected in the PXE boot for multiple images, however.