The software described in this documentation is either in Extended Support or Sustaining Support. See https://www.oracle.com/us/support/library/enterprise-linux-support-policies-069172.pdf for more information.
Oracle recommends that you upgrade the software described by this documentation as soon as possible.
The default file is the default boot-loader
configuration file for BIOS-based PXE clients and uses pxelinux
configuration settings, for example:
prompt 0 default ol6u6 timeout 0 label ol6u6 kernel vmlinuz-OL6u6 append initrd=initrd-OL6u6.img ksdevice=eth0 kssendmac ks=http://10.0.0.11/ksfiles/ol6u6_cfg.ks
To allow the boot: prompt to be displayed,
change the value of prompt to 1. To display
the prompt, press Shift or
Alt at the console.
The default directive identifies the default
boot entry by its label value,
ol6u6.
Pxelinux boots the client using the default boot entry after
timeout/10 seconds.
The kernel directive defines the name of the
kernel executable and the append directive
defines any parameters that should be appended when loading the
kernel, such as the name of the ram-disk image and the location
of the kickstart file.
You can use a configuration file such as the following to support a choice of installations:
prompt 0 default ol6u6 timeout 50 label ol6u6 kernel vmlinuz-OL6u6 append initrd=initrd-OL6u6.img ksdevice=eth0 kssendmac ks=http://10.0.0.11/ksfiles/ol6u6_cfg.ks label ol7u1 kernel vmlinuz-OL7u1 append initrd=initrd-OL7u1.img ksdevice=eth0 kssendmac ks=http://10.0.0.11/ksfiles/ol7u1_cfg.ks
The efidefault file is the default boot
loader configuration file for UEFI-based PXE clients and uses
GRUB configuration settings, for example:
default=0
hiddenmenu
splashimage=(nd)/splash.xpm.gz
timeout=0
title Oracle Linux 6 Update 6 Installation
root (nd)
kernel /vmlinuz-OL6u6 ksdevice=eth0 kssendmac ks=http://10.0.0.11/ksfiles/ol6u6_cfg.ks
initrd /initrd-OL6u6.img
The timeout=0 and
hiddenmenu directives cause the default
kernel to boot immediately without allowing you to press a key
to display a menu or modify the configuration of a boot entry.
The default kernel is defined as the first entry
(0), which is the only entry listed in this
file.
splashimage specifies the splash screen that
hides boot messages unless you press Esc. In
the example, the splash-screen file is shown as being available
on (nd), which is the network device. The
root directive defines that the kernel and
initial ram-disk image files are also available on
(nd).
The kernel directive defines the name of the
kernel executable and any parameters that should be appended
when loading the kernel, such as the location of the
installation packages, and how to access these packages. The
initrd directive specifies the initial
ram-disk image file.
You can use a configuration file such as the following to support a choice of installations:
default=0
splashimage=(nd)/splash.xpm.gz
timeout=10
title Oracle Linux 6 Update 6 Installation
root (nd)
kernel /vmlinuz-OL6u6 ksdevice=eth0 kssendmac ks=http://10.0.0.11/ksfiles/ol6u6_cfg.ks
initrd /initrd-OL6u6.img
title Oracle Linux 7 Update 1 Installation
root (nd)
kernel /vmlinuz-OL7u1 ksdevice=eth0 kssendmac ks=http://10.0.0.11/ksfiles/ol7u1_cfg.ks
initrd /initrd-OL7u1.img
The kernel and ram-disk image file paths are assumed to be
relative to the subdirectory such as efi or
pxelinux that contains the boot loader. If
you placed the vmlinuz and
initrd.img files in a subdirectory such as
efi/OL6u6 or
pxelinux/OL6u6, the appropriate
kernel and append lines
for pxelinux would be:
kernel OL6u6/vmlinuz append initrd=OL6u6/initrd.img ksdevice=eth0 kssendmac ks=http://10.0.0.11/ksfiles/ol6u6_cfg.ks
For GRUB, the appropriate kernel and
initrd lines would be:
kernel /OL6u6/vmlinuz ksdevice=eth0 kssendmac ks=http://10.0.0.11/ksfiles/ol6u6_cfg.ks initrd /OL6u6/initrd.img
To support different types of client, you can create a configuration file named for:
A client's UUID (for example,
a8943708-c6f6-51b9-611e-74e6ac80b93d)A client's MAC address prefixed by
01-, which represents the ARP hardware type for Ethernet, and using dashes to separate each byte value instead of colons (for example,01-80-00-27-c6-a1-16)A client's IP address expressed in hexadecimal without any leading 0x (for example,
0A0000FDrepresents the IP address 10.0.0.253)
The configuration files should be placed in either
efi or
pxelinux/pxelinux.cfg, depending on whether
the client is UEFI or BIOS-based.
The boot loader looks for a configuration file in the following order until it finds a matching file name:
UUIDa8943708-c6f6-51b9-611e-74e6ac80b93d)01-(for example,MAC_address01-80-00-27-c6-a1-16)Full 32 bits of the IP address (for example,
0A0000FD)Most significant 28 bits of the IP address (for example,
0A0000F)Most significant 24 bits of the IP address (for example,
0A0000)Most significant 20 bits of the IP address (for example,
0A000)Most significant 16 bits of the IP address (for example,
0A00)Most significant 12 bits of the IP address (for example,
0A0)Most significant 8 bits of the IP address (for example,
0A)Most significant 4 bits of the IP address (for example,
0)default(BIOS) orefidefault(EFI)
To reduce the number of configuration files that are required,
you can group clients of the same type by IP address. For
example, a configuration file named 0A0000E
represents the IP address range 10.0.0.224 through 10.0.0.239.
If several configuration files have contents that should remain identical, you can use the ln command to link the files to a primary (master) copy, for example:
#ln master-ol6u6 0A0000FC#ln master-ol6u6 0A0000FD#ln master-ol7u1 0A0000FE
For more information about GRUB, enter the info grub command to access the GRUB manual.
For more information about pxelinux, see https://www.syslinux.org/wiki/index.php/PXELINUX.
For information about configuring and using kickstart to perform automated installation, see Chapter 3, Installing Oracle Linux by Using Kickstart.