4.1. Preparing the environment

This section explains how to set up the environment for installation over a network.

4.1.1. Installing PXE components

You will need these components to set up a PXE environment:

  • TFTP server. This is a machine that allows your servers to boot and install Acronis Cyber Infrastructure over the network. Any machine that can run Linux and is accessible over network can be a TFTP server.

  • DHCP server. This is a standard DHCP machine serving TCP/IP settings to computers on your network.

  • HTTP server. This is a machine serving Acronis Cyber Infrastructure installation files over a network.

    You can also share Acronis Cyber Infrastructure distribution over a network via FTP (for example, with vsftpd) or NFS.

The easiest way is to set up all of these on the same physical machine:

# yum install tftp-server syslinux httpd dhcp

You can also use servers that already exist in your infrastructure. For example, skip httpd and dhcp if you already have the HTTP and DHCP servers.

4.1.2. Configuring the TFTP server

This section describes how to configure the TFTP server for BIOS-based systems. For information on how to configure it for installing Acronis Cyber Infrastructure on EFI-based systems, refer to the Red Hat Enterprise Linux Installation Guide.

Do the following:

  1. On the server, open the /etc/xinetd.d/tftp file, and edit it as follows:

    service tftp
{
disable         = no
socket_type     = dgram
protocol        = udp
wait            = yes
user            = root
server          = /usr/sbin/in.tftpd
server_args     = -v -s /tftpboot
per_source      = 11
cps             = 100 2
flags           = IPv4
}

    Once you are done, save the file.

  2. Create the /tftpboot directory and copy the following files to it: vmlinuz, initrd.img, menu.c32, pxelinux.0.

    These files are necessary to start installation. You can find the first two in the /images/pxeboot directory of the Acronis Cyber Infrastructure distribution. The last two files are located in the syslinux directory (usually /usr/share/syslinux or /usr/lib/syslinux).

  3. Create the /tftpboot/pxelinux.cfg directory and make the default file in it.

    # mkdir /tftpboot/pxelinux.cfg
# touch /tftpboot/pxelinux.cfg/default

  4. Add the following lines to default:

    default menu.c32
prompt 0
timeout 100
ontimeout INSTALL
menu title Boot Menu
label INSTALL
        menu label Install
        kernel vmlinuz
        append initrd=initrd.img ip=dhcp

    For detailed information on parameters you can specify in this file, refer to the documentation for syslinux.

  5. Restart the xinetd service:

    # /etc/init.d/xinetd restart

  6. If necessary, configure the firewall to allow access to the TFTP server (on port 69 by default).

    When running the TFTP server, you might get the “Permission denied” error. In this case, you may try to fix the problem by running the following command: # restorecon -Rv /tftboot/.

4.1.3. Setting up the DHCP server

To set up a DHCP server for installing Acronis Cyber Infrastructure over a network, add the following strings to the dhcpd.conf file, which is usually located in the /etc or /etc/dhcp directory:

next-server <PXE_server_IP_address>;
filename "/pxelinux.0";

To configure a DHCP server for installation on EFI-based systems, specify filename "/bootx64.efi" instead of filename "/pxelinux.0" in the dhcpd.conf file, where /bootx64.efi is the directory to which you copied the EFI boot images when setting up the TFTP server.

4.1.4. Setting up the HTTP server

Now that you have set up the TFTP and DHCP servers, you need to make the Acronis Cyber Infrastructure distribution files available for installation over the network. To do this:

  1. Set up an HTTP server (or configure the one you already have).

  2. Copy the contents of your Acronis Cyber Infrastructure installation DVD to a directory on the HTTP server (for example, /var/www/html/distrib).

  3. On the PXE server, specify the path to the Acronis Cyber Infrastructure installation files in the append line of the /tftpboot/pxelinux.cfg/default file.

    For EFI-based systems, the file you need to edit has the name of /tftpboot/pxelinux.cfg/efidefault or /tftpboot/pxelinux.cfg/<PXE_server_IP_address>.

    Assuming that the HTTP server is at 198.123.123.198, the installation files are in /var/www/html/distrib/, and DocumentRoot is set to /var/www/html, the default file may look like this:

    default menu.c32
prompt 0
timeout 100
ontimeout INSTALL
menu title Boot Menu
label INSTALL
        menu label Install
        kernel vmlinuz
        append initrd=initrd.img ip=dhcp inst.repo=http://198.123.123.198/distrib
Oct 06, 2020
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