Debian live cd - cesetxeberria/pxeserver GitHub Wiki

Prepare the server

First of all we have to prepare our PXE server using one of these bootloaders

We also need to configure it as a nfs server.

Get the files from an official Debian iso

If you prefer to create your own, see here.

Download a debian live image from here.

wget -c https://cdimage.debian.org/debian-cd/current-live/amd64/iso-hybrid/debian-live-11.0.0-amd64-standard.iso

Once downloaded, create a directory to mount the iso file and mount it. Then create a new folder inside the tftp-root and copy all the needed files there.

mkdir -p /home/tftp/livecds/debian/iso
mount debian-live-11.0.0-amd64-standard.iso /home/tftp/livecds/debian/iso
cp -r /home/tftp/livecds/debian/iso/live /home/tftp/livecds/debian/

This will copy some files, config-4.19.0-8-amd64 filesystem.squashfs initrd.img-4.19.0-8-amd64 System.map-4.19.0-8-amd64 vmlinuz-4.19.0-8-amd64

We just need vmlinuz, initrd.img and filesystem.squashfs. The last one must be inside /home/tftp/livecds/debian/live folder. We will rename and move the others.

mv /home/tftp/livecds/debian/live/vmlinuz-4.19.0-8-amd64 /home/tftp/livecds/debian/vmlinuz
mv /home/tftp/livecds/debian/live/initrd.img-4.19.0-8-amd64 /home/tftp/livecds/debian/initrd.img

Add the livecd entry to your boot menu.

Using pxelinux

nano /home/tftp/syslinux/bios/pxelinux.cfg/default

label Debian live
 menu clear
 kernel /livecds/debian/vmlinuz
 initrd /livecds/debian/initrd.img
 append panic=10 ro boot=live root=/dev/nfs nfsroot=192.168.1.54:/home/tftp/livecds/debian swap
 ipappend 2

Remember that 192.168.1.54 is just an example. You must use the ip of your own nfs server. Last line (ipappend 2) is very important. When Debian boots, it tries to get an ip address using dhcp, but as we are booting from pxe he already has one. With this line we are telling the system to keep it.

Using grub

nano /home/tftp/grub/grub.cfg

menuentry "Debian live" {
 linux /livecds/debian/vmlinuz panic=10 ro boot=live root=/dev/nfs nfsroot=192.168.1.54:/home/tftp/livecds/debian ksdevice=bootif
 initrd /livecds/debian/initrd.img
}

Remember that 192.168.1.54 is just an example. You must use the ip of your own nfs server. Last part of the first command (ksdevice=bootif) is very important. When Debian boots, it tries to get an ip address using dhcp, but as we are booting from pxe he already has one. With this line we are telling the system to keep it.

Using ipxe

nano /home/tftp/default.ipxe

:debianlive
kernel /livecds/debian/vmlinuz
initrd /livecds/debian/initrd.img
imgargs vmlinuz initrd=initrd.img panic=10 ro boot=live root=/dev/nfs nfsroot=192.168.1.54:/home/tftp/livecds/debian ksdevice=bootif      
boot ||
goto MENU