eOS PXE

A standalone self-contained PXE server designed to work in any Linux or Mac OS runtime environment without installing system software. The server allows you to boot unmodified elementary OS Luna Live CD ISO on any PXE-supported equipment.

A very useful tool for booting the installer on machines without a CD-ROM drive or to save time on creating a bootable USB flash drive. Ethernet patch cord is the only additional hardware that you will need to work.

elementary OS is one of the best Linux desktop distributions.

It includes an entire operating system based on Ubuntu, a desktop environment (Pantheon) and all its components, several applications (Files, Noise, Audience, Maya, Terminal, Scratch, Snap, and Switchboard to name a few), a developer toolkit (Granite), a set of design requirements and a Human Interface Guideline.

Host machine:

1. Prepare a separate Linux or Mac OS machine (host) with a free Ethernet interface.
2. Install VirtualBox, Vagrant and Ansible.
3. Download eOS PXE.
4. Download the Elementary OS Luna LiveCD (elementaryos-stable-i386.20130810.iso) and put it in the eos_pxe/files/ directory.
5. Configure eOS PXE and run it.

Target machine:

1. Configure BIOS boot order to boot over the network.
2. Connect the host and the target machine using an Ethernet patch cord.
3. Reboot and wait for the Elementary OS to start.

The software requires a private subnet for its operations. To change settings, edit eos_pxe/roles/common/vars/main.yml.

• bridged_network
  The name of the Ethernet interface.
  "en0: Ethernet" is Mac OS network interface card.
• server_ip
  Host IP. Must be from a private subnet.
  Possible values: "192.168.x.x", "172.16.x.x" and "10.x.x.x"
  Default value: " 192.168.0.1"
• dhcp_subnet, dhcp_range_start and dhcp_range_end
  DHCP server configuration. Default values:
  dhcp_subnet: "192.168.0.0 netmask 255.255.255.0"
dhcp_range_start: "192.168.0.100"
dhcp_range_end: "192.168.0.200"
• iso_file
  The name of the downloaded elementary OS ISO file name.

Configuration example:
bridged_network: "en0: Ethernet"
server_ip: "192.168.0.1"
dhcp_subnet: "192.168.0.0 netmask 255.255.255.0"
dhcp_range_start: "192.168.0.100"
dhcp_range_end: "192.168.0.200"
iso_file: "elementaryos-stable-i386.20130810.iso"

To instantiate the virtual machine and start the server:
$ eos_pxe/start.sh

To stop the server:
$ eos_pxe/stop.sh

To uninstall:
$ cd eos_pxe/cache && vagrant destroy

The current version of the software is not intended to run on the Windows platform. However, this feature may be added in the future. Please express your opinion in the comments if you need Windows support or not.