Docker Alpine Netboot Server

Provides everything you need to PXE boot any machine (BIOS/UEFI).

Non-iPXE booting machines will be "upgraded" to iPXE.

Contains a TFTP, DHCP and HTTP server. The HTTP server runs on port 8069 by default for safe usage with other services using port 80.

Supports running a DHCP server in authoritative, proxy and disabled modes.

Example usage

• Create a folder to store your boot images and menu.ipxe file. There is an example menu.ipxe in the repo.
• Run the container:

docker run --rm -d --net host --cap-add NET_ADMIN --name=netbooter -v /path/to/httproot:/netboot/httproot \
  -e DHCPMODE=authoritative \
  -e DOMAINNAME=localdomain \
  -e DNSSERVERS="1.1.1.1,192.168.56.1" \
  -e GATEWAY=192.168.56.1 \
  -e NETMASK=255.255.255.0 \
  -e NETPREFIX=192.168.56 \
  -e RANGESTART=50 \
  -e RANGEEND=100 \
  m1cr0man/netbooter:latest

For more examples, check out the Makefile.

Which DHCP mode is right for you?

When configuring netboot for the first time, DHCP configuration can be very confusing. There are a lot of different ways to configure it and all of them depend on your particular situation.

Authoritative DHCP

Use this mode if you want the DHCP server in this container to serve leases in the configured network. For example, if you are trying to netboot a virtual machine or physical machine on a network interface with no other DHCP servers configured.

Environment variables:

• DHCPMODE: Must be set to authoritative.
• DOMAINNAME: Domain to pass to clients via DHCP.
• DNSSERVERS: (Optional) Comma separated list of DNS servers.
• GATEWAY: (Optional) Network gateway to provide to clients. Will default to server's IP.
• NETMASK: (Optional) Netmask to provide to clients. Defaults to 255.255.255.0.
• NETPREFIX: The first 3 digits of the IPv4 address range you want to serve. No trailing dot.
• RANGESTART: The first IP address to serve. Prefixed with the NETPREFIX.
• RANGEEND: The last IP address to serve. Prefixed with the NETPREFIX.

Proxy DHCP

Use this mode if there is another DHCP server on your network which you cannot reconfigure to support network booting. For example, you want to netboot a host on your home network and the router already serves DHCP leases itself.

Environment variables:

• DHCPMODE: Must be set to proxy.
• NETPREFIX: The first 3 digits of the IPv4 address range you want to serve. No trailing dot.
• RANGESTART: The first address of the network to serve requests on. Usually 1.
• NETMASK: (Optional) Netmask to serve requests on. Defaults to 255.255.255.0.

No DHCP

You can disable the DHCP feature of this image entirely if you already have a DHCP server on your network and can configure it to serve the correct PXE boot options. For example, you have another Linux/Windows DHCP server that you have root/administrator access to, and you just need a TFTP + IPXE server.

In this case, you can exclude all environment variables except for DHCPMODE.

Environment variables:

• DHCPMODE: Must be set to none.

Example docker-compose.yml

version: '3.4'
services:
  netbooter:
    image: m1cr0man/netbooter:latest
    restart: always
    network: host
    cap_add:
      - NET_ADMIN
    environment:
      DHCPMODE: authoritative
      DOMAINNAME: localdomain
      DNSSERVERS: 1.1.1.1,192.168.56.1
      GATEWAY: 192.168.56.1
      NETMASK: 255.255.255.0
      NETPREFIX: 192.168.56
      RANGESTART: 50
      RANGEEND: 100
    volumes:
      - ./path/to/httproot:/netboot/httproot:ro

Adding images

• Download the necessary netboot files for the image you want to use (e.g. initrd + vmlinuz)
• Copy these files to your httproot folder
• Add a section to your menu.ipxe to provide an option to select this OS. The example menu.ipxe includes a section for Rancher OS installer which you can copy/edit.

For more information on writing the menu.ipxe see the iPXE docs

Usage from Github

A Makefile is provided for conveniently building + running the container. Simply run make to do both, or run make [build|run] for the individual parts.

It is recommended to edit the run target to suit your own environment/needs.