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1<section xmlns="http://docbook.org/ns/docbook"
2 xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"
3 xmlns:xi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XInclude"
4 version="5.0"
5 xml:id="sec-booting-from-pxe">
6
7<title>Booting from the <quote>netboot</quote> media (PXE)</title>
8<para>
9 Advanced users may wish to install NixOS using an existing PXE or
10 iPXE setup.
11</para>
12<para>
13 These instructions assume that you have an existing PXE or iPXE
14 infrastructure and simply want to add the NixOS installer as another
15 option. To build the necessary files from a recent version of
16 nixpkgs, you can run:
17</para>
18<programlisting>
19nix-build -A netboot nixos/release.nix
20</programlisting>
21<para>
22 This will create a <literal>result</literal> directory containing: *
23 <literal>bzImage</literal> – the Linux kernel *
24 <literal>initrd</literal> – the initrd file *
25 <literal>netboot.ipxe</literal> – an example ipxe script
26 demonstrating the appropriate kernel command line arguments for this
27 image
28</para>
29<para>
30 If you’re using plain PXE, configure your boot loader to use the
31 <literal>bzImage</literal> and <literal>initrd</literal> files and
32 have it provide the same kernel command line arguments found in
33 <literal>netboot.ipxe</literal>.
34</para>
35<para>
36 If you’re using iPXE, depending on how your HTTP/FTP/etc. server is
37 configured you may be able to use <literal>netboot.ipxe</literal>
38 unmodified, or you may need to update the paths to the files to
39 match your server’s directory layout
40</para>
41<para>
42 In the future we may begin making these files available as build
43 products from hydra at which point we will update this documentation
44 with instructions on how to obtain them either for placing on a
45 dedicated TFTP server or to boot them directly over the internet.
46</para>
47
48</section>