Boot xubuntu from network

I am trying to make Xubuntu available to pxe boot. I used dnsmasq and configured it to boot ubuntu net install. It worked well. But since I did not find Xubuntu's net install version, I configured the pxe server to boot the regular Xubuntu image (18.04.1 here).
The Linux kernel and the initrd are downloaded by the client but at some point during the startup process (before lightdm) a message is displayed every second saying that /dev/sr0 is unreachable. I guess the system is configured to look for its files at this place and it does not exist when booting over the network.

Several solutions to the problem :

• There is a netboot image of Xubuntu but I don’t know where
• I can trick Xubuntu to fetch /dev/sr0 on the pxe server. Since it is a device, I don’t know how to do it…
• My pxe configuration misses some options…

Are there articles I can read or keyword I can search for that could help me?

Thanks!

My dnsmasq configuration file :

interface=enp1s0,lo
# Only this interface
bind-interfaces
domain=here.local
# DHCP range-leases
dhcp-range=10.0.0.100,10.0.0.199,1h
# PXE
dhcp-boot=pxelinux.0,pxeserver,10.0.0.254
# Gateway
dhcp-option=3,10.0.0.254
# DNS
dhcp-option=6,10.0.0.254,9.9.9.9
server=9.9.9.9
# Broadcast Address
dhcp-option=28,10.0.0.255
# NTP Server
dhcp-option=42,0.0.0.0
enable-tftp
tftp-root=/home/me/Desktop/pxe_test/tftproot

My pxe file (/home/me/Desktop/pxe_test/tftproot/)

default menu.c32
prompt 0
menu title Boot Menu label localboot menu label Boot Local Disk localboot 0 label ubuntu_amd64_18-04-netboot menu label Manual Install Ubuntu server 16.04 amd64 kernel ubuntu_amd64_18-04-netboot/ubuntu-installer/amd64/linux append initrd=ubuntu_amd64_18-04-netboot/ubuntu-installer/amd64/initrd.gz vga=788 label xubuntu-18.04.1-desktop-amd64 menu label Manual Install Xubuntu 18.04.1 amd64 kernel xubuntu-18.04.1-desktop-amd64/casper/vmlinuz file=/cdrom/preseed/xubuntu.seed boot=casper quiet splash --- append initrd=xubuntu-18.04.1-desktop-amd64/casper/initrd vga=788 

1 Answer

For start you can refer this nice HowTo:

Often it is possible to boot a live CD image - the .iso file - almost directly over PXE but details may differ between versions - try to google something like "boot Ubuntu xx.xx live image over PXE", etc.