HOWTO: PXE boot a KVM guest

mrballcb

New Member
Sep 30, 2011
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Hi all, I just wanted to post a quick note about how I got PXE booting of a KVM guest working on Proxmox 1.9. The only requirement is that you already have a PXE server configured and working. If this procedure is common knowledge, I apologize in advance for taking up your time.
  1. Go to http://rom-o-matic.net/etherboot/etherboot-git/etherboot.git/contrib/rom-o-matic/ and select the rtl8139 driver (the one I used was called "rtl8139:rtl8139") and choose the "iso" format. Download the iso (will be named eb-git-rtl8139.iso and it should be about 400K).
  2. Place the iso into the /var/lib/vz/template/iso directory. If you have a cluster, you can do this on the master and it should propagate to the slave nodes.
  3. Begin creating a new KVM guest.
  4. For the cdrom device, select the iso you just put in the template iso directory.
  5. For the network device, select the rtl8139 driver.
  6. Choose all other values according to your normal preferences and requirements.
  7. Start the guest and click into the VNC console.
At this point, your guest should obtain an IP and get the PXE menu, if you have one.

I did attempt to use the e1000 driver and the e1000 netboot image from rom-o-matic. There are several part-number specific drivers for each type of network card, and I was unable to find the right one. The rtl8139 driver worked right out the gate, so I stopped testing further drivers.

...Todd
 
I have successfully PXE booted KVM virtual machines under Proxmox with both e1000 and virtio by simply setting the device start order to include the network device on the Options tab under Virtual Machine Configuration. No ISO was required; Proxmox appears to include the necessary PXE "firmware" for these device types.
 
I have successfully PXE booted KVM virtual machines under Proxmox with both e1000 and virtio by simply setting the device start order to include the network device on the Options tab under Virtual Machine Configuration. No ISO was required; Proxmox appears to include the necessary PXE "firmware" for these device types.
LOL, I cannot believe that I never saw that. Thanks for the nudge. :D
 
Sure thing, friends don't let friends drive Realtek NICs, even if they're emulated. ;-)
 
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