CPU – Verify the Provisioner PXE Server has one of the following Intel or AMD CPU architecture:  multi-core x86_64 (EM64T, Intel  64 or AMD64). Recommended RAM: 2-4 GB (minimum RAM: 1GB.)

NICs – The Provisioner PXE Server requires 2 NICs: one for GUI/API access, the other on a dedicated Class-C subnet (0-255) for provisioning and imaging systems

Disk space – Verify the server has disk space sufficient to store all software that will be provisioned, including operating systems and user-specified software: if you provision only 1 or 2 distros, a 60GB disk is sufficient. The typical Linux distro media is around 4GB and Windows OS (without drivers) is 2-3 GB. Provisioning-only installations should have 100-250GB for production use.

If you wish to capture disc images of the client systems, considerable disc storage on the Provisioner PXE Server should be available (locally or NFS-mounted). Imaging compresses client system disk images approximately 3 to 1, so if data on a client's disk totals 120GB, plan on 40GB of storage on the Provisioner PXE Server.

Recommended disk space for typical production data center environments is 500GB to 2TB.

Disk and network speed – Since provisioning and imaging events require the transfer of very large amounts of data and sometimes very large single-file transfers (>2 GB for Windows Server 2008 and Windows 7), ensure that your disk(s) and network have the highest throughput available. The better the disk and network performance, the faster the provisioning and imaging times.

Operating system – Review the Quick Start Guide for OS requirements

Running the Provisioner PXE Server in a virtual machine: VMware ESXi is an excellent host for the Provisioner PXE Server.

Language – Please make sure that you specify to install the OS with English US language. If you have already installed RHEL or CentOS with another language, you must change it by editing /etc/sysconfig/i18n, and changing, for example, LANG="de_DE.UTF-8" to LANG="en_US.UTF-8"

Services – All services required to run the Provisioner PXE Server are automatically installed and configured with the installation scripts (DHCP, PostgreSQL, etc.) Note that DHCP (dhcpd.conf) is installed as non-authoritative to better coexist with other DHCP servers. If the Provisioner PXE Server DHCP is the only DHCP server on the network, the authoritative directive should be uncommented (changed from “# authoritative” to “authoritative”). Learn about co-existing with DHCP servers and running on multiple LANs/VLANs.

HTTP server -- Verify that the system where the Provisioner PXE Server will be installed has no HTTP server. The  Provisioner PXE Server uses Port 80, the same used by Apache for example.

Firewall Ports – All processes associated with the Firewall ports listed in Table 1 must be stopped during installation.

Firewall Ports That Must Have Processes Stopped During Installation of the Provisioner PXE Server:

R Step 1 – Identify all processes and process IDs (PIDs) associated with networking ports

Identify the ports listed in Table 1, their processes, and PIDs by executing the netstat command with the following options:

netstat -pan

The stdout from the netstat -pan command lists the networking ports, the names of the processes associated with each port, and the PIDs for each process. Identify each port shown in Table 1, and for each identified port, make a note of all associated processes and their PIDs

R Step 2 – Remove the symbolic links between the identified processes and the init.d file

Remove the symbolic links between every process identified processes and the init.d file

The init.d file is usually located at /etc/init.d or /etc/rc.d/init.d

The method for removing symbolic links between processes and the init.d file is determined by the Linux distribution. Consult your distribution's documentation for instructions

Any http process operating on Port 8080 can be allowed to operate, and its symbolic links to the file init.d can be left in operation.

Internet Connection – Make sure you have access to a Yum repository (either a remote mirror or RHN, or a local mirror or Satellite) from the Provisioner PXE Server.  It will be needed during the automated installation process only (many packages will be downloaded from repositories).  Once you have installed the Provisioner PXE Server, it will no longer need an Internet connection unless you provision Ubuntu or Debian systems.

Static IP Address – Verify the Provisioner PXE Server has a static IP in /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ the file ifcfg-eth0 must contain the static IP address, subnet mask, DNS and Gateway addresses, and the DCHP flag should say “none”. Should you subsequently change your Provisioner PXE Server's IP address, refer to the Topic Reconfiguring the Provisioner PXE Server.

When the Provisioner PXE Server installs its own DHCP server, it defaults to "non-authoritative", allowing for coexistence and eliminating conflicts with other DHCP servers on the network. If the Provisioner PXE Server's DHCP server is to be the only DHCP server on the Provisioner PXE Server subnet, the "#authoritative" line in the /etc/dhcpd.conf file needs to be uncommented to "authoritative". Learn more about co-existing with DHCP servers and running on multiple LANs/VLANs.

Ports open on your server firewall during provisioning and imaging – If you provision clients over a firewall-protected network, verify the ports listed in Table 2 are open (defined as exceptions) on the Provisioner PXE Server and on any machine located between the Provisioner PXE Server and the Provisioner PXE Server's client to be provisioned.

FTP access can be prevented using an iptables rule:

iptables –A INPUT –p tcp –-dport 21 –j REJECT

Then to reactivate iptables on reboot, issue this command:

chkconfig –-level 345 iptables on

The following is an example of the network configuration of a VM running a CentOS guest with the provisioning server installed, running on a Windows XP system with VMware Workstation (note that using VMware Workstation is not supported):

CentOS VM running on top of Windows XP:

cat /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0

# Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] 79c970 [PCnet32 LANCE]

DEVICE=eth0

BOOTPROTO=none

HWADDR=00:0C:29:BA:CE:D6

ONBOOT=yes

IPADDR=192.168.0.11

NETWORK=192.168.0.0

BROADCAST=192.168.0.255

GATEWAY=192.168.0.254

DNS=192.168.0.254

NETMASK=255.255.255.0

[root@localhost keygen]# ifconfig

eth0      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:0C:29:BA:CE:D6  

         inet addr:192.168.0.11  Bcast:192.168.0.255  Mask:255.255.255.0

         inet6 addr: fe80::20c:29ff:feba:ced6/64 Scope:Link

         UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1

         RX packets:129039 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0

         TX packets:95943 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0

         collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000

         RX bytes:133577790 (127.3 MiB)  TX bytes:19632212 (18.7 MiB)

         Interrupt:185 Base address:0x1400

lo        Link encap:Local Loopback  

         inet addr:127.0.0.1  Mask:255.0.0.0

         inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host

         UP LOOPBACK RUNNING  MTU:16436  Metric:1

         RX packets:2347 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0

         TX packets:2347 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0

         collisions:0 txqueuelen:0

         RX bytes:4358042 (4.1 MiB)  TX bytes:4358042 (4.1 MiB)

Windows XP SP3 Host OS running VMware Workstation:

ipconfig /all

Windows IP Configuration

       Host Name . . . . . . . . . . . . :

       Primary Dns Suffix  . . . . . . . :

       Node Type . . . . . . . . . . . . : Hybrid

       IP Routing Enabled. . . . . . . . : No

       WINS Proxy Enabled. . . . . . . . : No

       DNS Suffix Search List. . . . . . : hq.linmin.com

Ethernet adapter VMware Network Adapter VMnet8:

       Connection-specific DNS Suffix  . :

       Description . . . . . . . . . . . : VMware Virtual Ethernet Adapter for VMnet8

       Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 00-50-56-C0-00-08

       Dhcp Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : No

       IP Address. . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.211.1

       Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.0

       Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . :

Ethernet adapter VMware Network Adapter VMnet1:

       Connection-specific DNS Suffix  . :

       Description . . . . . . . . . . . : VMware Virtual Ethernet Adapter for VMnet1

       Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 00-50-56-C0-00-01

       Dhcp Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : No

       IP Address. . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.244.1

       Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.0

       Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . :

Ethernet adapter Local Area Connection:

       Connection-specific DNS Suffix  . : hq.linmin.com

       Description . . . . . . . . . . . : Broadcom 440x 10/100 Integrated Controller

       Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 00-0F-B0-7D-4B-AC

       Dhcp Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : Yes

       Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . : Yes

       IP Address. . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.0.106

       Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.0

       Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.0.254

       DHCP Server . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.0.254

       DNS Servers . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.0.254

       Primary WINS Server . . . . . . . : 192.168.0.254

       Lease Obtained. . . . . . . . . . : Monday, July 12, 2010 10:12:23 AM

       Lease Expires . . . . . . . . . . : Tuesday, July 13, 2010 10:12:23 AM

Ethernet adapter Local Area Connection 6:

       Media State . . . . . . . . . . . : Media disconnected

       Description . . . . . . . . . . . : TAP-Win32 Adapter V9

       Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 00-FF-91-FC-A1-78

You should have both host and guest in the same network (in this case, it's 192.168.0.0). Ignore everything VMware-related in ipconfig (it's automatically generated).

Make sure your VM uses bridged networking (an option when you create the VM).

You'll then be able to provision and image Windows and Linux systems running in Virtual Machines on the same host that runs your Provisioner PXE Server installation.

Tip for notebook users needing to provision and image in multiple locations: change your secondary office/home network settings to match your primary office/data center's network settings. By doing so, you can close your laptop, leave the data center or office, and have everything work automatically when you start provisioning or imaging in your secondary locations.

cd /usr/bin

perl vmware-configure.pl

If you have multiple ISOs on a VMware Workstation Host OS and Provisioner running on a Guest OS in a VM, you can avoid wasting disk space by using VMware Tools and creating symbolic links from the Guest OS to the Host OS.

First, on your Linux Host OS, create the desired directory structure:

/home/tftpboot/ISOs/esx               (for the VMware hypervisors ESX)

/home/tftpboot/ISOs/esxi              (for the VMware hypervisors ESXi)

/home/tftpboot/ISOs/linux

/home/tftpboot/ISOs/windows           (for Windows Server 2003 & Windows XP)

/home/tftpboot/ISOs/windows/win7_2008 (for Windows Server 2008 & Windows 7)

Then use VMware Tools to enable Folder Sharing and add a shared folder with:

Name = ISOs

Host Path = /home/tftpboot/ISOs

Finally, on the Provisioner PXE Server, create symbolic links:

cd /home/tftpboot

rm -rf ISOs

ln -s /mnt/hgfs/ISOs ISOs

You can see the Host OS directory structure:

ll ISOs

ISOs -> /mnt/hgfs/ISOs

ll ISOs/

esx

linux

windows

Now when you use ISO media management scripts for Linux, Windows and ESX, you can select the desired ISO from the list of ISOs stored on your Host OS, without having had to copy your ISOs to the Provisioner PXE Server system.