Serial-PXE-TFTP install of FreeBSD(BSDRP,Xsense,NAS4Free)/OpenBSD/Centos

Objectives

Remote  installation of multiples Operating systems using only:

• FreeBSD server with a PXE and TFTP services
• Serial console: IPMI Serial-over-LAN (sol)

I didn't found an easy way for PXE+TFTP (only!) serial remote installation for NetBSD or DragonFly.
FreeBSD was very complex too (need to recompile bootloader for TFTP and serial usage), but hopefully mfsBSD hides this problem.
OpenBSD and CentOS, by providing ramdisk natively and easy way of configuring their bootloader, were the most admin-friendly.

dnsmasq

This step will install an all-in-once DHCP/TFTP server:
pkg install dnsmasq
Then, create a small configuration file (example with "bce1" as NIC and local subnet in 192.168.1.0/24)
cat > /usr/local/etc/dnsmasq.conf <<EOF
interface=bce1
dhcp-range=192.168.1.80,192.168.1.85
pxe-service=x86PC, "pxelinux", pxelinux
enable-tftp
tftp-root=/tftpboot
EOF

And start it:
sysrc dnsmasq_enable=yes
service dnsmasq start

pxelinux

This step will install pxelinux binaries and configure PXE menu:

mkdir /tftpboot
cd /tftpboot
fetch https://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/boot/syslinux/syslinux-6.03.zip
unzip -d syslinux syslinux-6.03.zip
cp syslinux/bios/memdisk/memdisk /tftpboot
cp syslinux/bios/core/pxelinux.0 /tftpboot
cp syslinux/bios/com32/elflink/ldlinux/ldlinux.c32 /tftpboot
cp syslinux/bios/com32/menu/menu.c32 /tftpboot
cp syslinux/bios/com32/libutil/libutil.c32 /tftpboot
cp syslinux/bios/com32/modules/pxechn.c32 /tftpboot
cp syslinux/bios/com32/lib/libcom32.c32 /tftpboot
cp syslinux/bios/com32/chain/chain.c32 /tftpboot
cp syslinux/bios/com32/modules/reboot.c32 /tftpboot/
rm syslinux-6.03.zip
rm -rf syslinux
mkdir /tftpboot/pxelinux.cfg
cat > /tftpboot/pxelinux.cfg/default <<EOF
SERIAL 0 115200
CONSOLE 0
UI menu.c32
TIMEOUT 300
MENU TITLE PXE BOOT MENU
LABEL freebsd
 MENU DEFAULT
 MENU LABEL mfsbsd (FreeBSD, pfSense, BSDRP, NAS4Free, etc...)
 KERNEL memdisk
 APPEND initrd=/mfsbsd-10.1-RELEASE-amd64.img harddisk raw
LABEL openbsd
 MENU LABEL OpenBSD
 KERNEL pxechn.c32
 APPEND ::/openbsd/pxeboot
LABEL netbsd
 MENU LABEL NetBSD
 KERNEL pxechn.c32
 APPEND ::/netbsd/pxeboot_ia32_com0.bin
LABEL centos
 MENU LABEL Centos 7
 kernel centos/vmlinuz
 append initrd=centos/initrd.img method=http://mirror.centos.org/centos/7/os/x86_64/ devfs=nomount ip=dhcp console=ttyS0,115200 earlyprint=serial,ttyS0,115200
LABEL local
 MENU LABEL local disk
 KERNEL chain.c32
 APPEND hd0
LABEL reboot
 MENU LABEL reboot
 KERNEL reboot.c32
EOF

FreeBSD

Download mfsBSD image and enable serial port:

fetch -o /tftpboot/mfsbsd-10.1-RELEASE-amd64.img http://mfsbsd.vx.sk/files/images/10/amd64/mfsbsd-10.1-RELEASE-amd64.img
mdconfig -a -t vnode -f mfsbsd-10.1-RELEASE-amd64.img
mount /dev/md0a /mnt/
echo "-S115200 -h" > /mnt/boot.config
umount /mnt
mdconfig -d -u 0

OpenBSD

Download OpenBSD's pxeboot and RamDisk image, then enable serial port:
mkdir /tftpboot/openbsd/
fetch -o /tftpboot/openbsd/pxeboot http://ftp.openbsd.org/pub/OpenBSD/5.7/amd64/pxeboot
fetch -o /tftpboot/openbsd/bsd.rd http://ftp.openbsd.org/pub/OpenBSD/5.7/amd64/bsd.rd
mkdir /tftpboot/etc
cat > /tftpboot/etc/boot.conf <<EOF
stty com0 115200
set tty com0
boot tftp:/openbsd/bsd.rd
EOF

CentOS

Download CentOS kernel and RamDisk:
mkdir /tftpboot/centos
fetch -o /tftpboot/centos/initrd.img ftp://ftp.free.fr/mirrors/ftp.centos.org/7.1.1503/os/x86_64/images/pxeboot/initrd.img
fetch -o /tftpboot/centos/vmlinuz ftp://ftp.free.fr/mirrors/ftp.centos.org/7.1.1503/os/x86_64/images/pxeboot/vmlinuz

Installing BSDRP, pfSense, OPNsense, NAS4Free, or any nanoBSD

From mfsbsd, just dd their serial nanobsd/embedded image to the local hard drive.
For installing FreeBSD: just uses bsdinstall

Debugging PXE/TFTP process

From the server, start a tcpdump accepting only bootps and tftp packets:

tcpdump -ni bce1 -vv port bootps or port tftp