Vagrant PXE test environment

A vagrant PXE client/server environment which supports legacy and UEFI boot with iPXE.
It is designed to learn and test cloning solutions, nfsroot, ipxe, auto install etc...
Default pxe configuration loads ipxe in UEFI mode and start ubuntu installer over nfsroot.

Prepare

Install qemu, libvirt, OVMF, nfsd, vagrant-libvirt

# For archlinux
pacman -S vagrant libvirt qemu ovmf virt-manager
sudo gpasswd -a $USER libvirt
systemctl start libvirtd
vagrant plugin install vagrant-libvirt
# choose libvirt in menu

VMs

Run

Run server with

$ vagrant up
$ vagrant ssh server

To run client, which has autostart off
Note: If you want to test a legacy client boot, comment libvirt.firmware line in Vagrantfile.

$ vagrant up client

Then open virt-manager to see your pxe client booting. Before the install ends, uncheck NIC in VM boot order configuration to avoid install loop on reboot.

Clean

vagrant destroy -f

Refs

• http://www.syslinux.org/wiki/index.php?title=PXELINUX
• https://help.ubuntu.com/community/DisklessUbuntuHowto
• https://github.com/vagrant-libvirt/vagrant-libvirt#no-box-and-pxe-boot
• https://github.com/stephenrlouie/PXE-Boot-VM/
• https://ipxe.org

Note: check pxelinux branch to see a simple pxelinux exemple.