HTTP Boot in SLES 15

Summary:  The information below will cover the steps involved in installing SLES 15 OS in Dell EMC PowerEdge Servers using HTTP Boot.

HTTP Boot

HTTP Boot is client-server communication based application. It combines the Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP), Domain Name System (DNS), and Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) to provide the capability for system deployment and configuration over the network. This new capability can be utilized as a higher-performance replacement for Trivial File Transfer Protocol (TFTP) based Preboot Execution Environment (PXE) Boot methods of network deployment.

This document provides a brief introduction to the HTTP Boot mechanism, instructions on setting up the HTTP Boot server on SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 15(SLES15), and a practice of installing SLES15 on a Dell EMC PowerEdge 14G and above servers using HTTP Boot.

Configuring the HTTP Boot server

In this section, we demonstrate how HTTP Boot can be used with Dell EMC PowerEdge servers. We also show how to establish an HTTP Boot server in the SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES 15) operating system.  OS installation through HTTP Boot uses grub as HTTP NBP, we need to edit the grub.cfg file, which loads the kernel and initrd from the installation image through the http protocol and kicks the installation to start.

Steps:

In our example, /var/www/html is used as the HTTP server root directory.

1. Set up a server with http service running on it.

                        systemctl start httpd

2. Copy  the SLES 15 iso in the root directory and mount it to a folder tmp
3. Create a folder in /var/www/html/

                        Eg: Here httpboot folder is created.

4. Copy the contents of /root/tmp/EFI/BOOT in /var/www/html/httpboot

contents are:

5. Create another folder inside /var/www/html/sles15 and copy the initrdefi and linuxefi from /root/tmp/boot/x86_64/loader. These are the initrd and kernel that will be used for initial boot from http boot server.

6. Create another folder with the repository of SLES 15. This will be the repository from where the installer will pick the packages during installation.
7. Edit the grub.cfg file to get the menu entries (if you require additional OS enties)

Configuring HTTP Boot Client

HTTP Boot should be supported and enabled on the UEFI HTTP Boot clients in the BIOS.

1. Power on the server and press the F2 key to enter the System Setup menu.
2. Select System BIOS .

3. Select Boot Settings:

          Select Boot Mode as UEFI.  Save the Settings.

4. Select Network Settings

5. Under UEFI HTTP Settings select HTTP Device 1: Enabled

6. Go to HTTP Device1 Settings:

           Enable an Interface

           Select Protocol as IPv4

           Disable VLAN

           Enter a URI :

Installing an OS through HTTP Boot

Before you install the OS through HTTP Boot, verify the following:

The HTTP Boot server and client machine are in the same network segment. The HTTP service and DHCP service are in active status. 

The HTTP Boot option is enabled and the boot mode is set to UEFI in the BIOS on the client side. 

Steps:

To install OS through HTTP Boot on the server, perform the following steps:

1. Power on the Dell PowerEdge server and press F11 to enter the BOOT MANAGER.

2. Select Boot Menu option as HTTP Device1