nixpkgs/nixos/doc/manual/installation/installing-pxe.section.md
Nikolay Amiantov 29fd78747a nixos/manual: use system nixpkgs to build pxe image
The command in example is expected to be run from nixpkgs checkout, but
there's no explanation of this. Let's just use system nixpkgs: most
users will have it just working and those who use git checkouts will
figure it out.
2022-02-16 22:22:32 +03:00

1.3 KiB

Booting from the "netboot" media (PXE)

Advanced users may wish to install NixOS using an existing PXE or iPXE setup.

These instructions assume that you have an existing PXE or iPXE infrastructure and simply want to add the NixOS installer as another option. To build the necessary files from your current version of nixpkgs, you can run:

nix-build -A netboot.x86_64-linux '<nixpkgs/nixos/release.nix>'

This will create a result directory containing: * bzImage -- the Linux kernel * initrd -- the initrd file * netboot.ipxe -- an example ipxe script demonstrating the appropriate kernel command line arguments for this image

If you're using plain PXE, configure your boot loader to use the bzImage and initrd files and have it provide the same kernel command line arguments found in netboot.ipxe.

If you're using iPXE, depending on how your HTTP/FTP/etc. server is configured you may be able to use netboot.ipxe unmodified, or you may need to update the paths to the files to match your server's directory layout.

In the future we may begin making these files available as build products from hydra at which point we will update this documentation with instructions on how to obtain them either for placing on a dedicated TFTP server or to boot them directly over the internet.