Random Rantings and Code

Right a little background to begin with, I use FOG in a few schools to image my machines and i have been thinking about adding some more functionality to the PXE Menu, namely a live distro so that i can quickly rule out driver problems etc… on machines by leaving windows, it also allows for data recovery as you can browse the HDD and a network share.

I found some instructions on how setup DSL (Damn Small Linux) in the FOG menu but DSL didnt support the hardware in the first machine i tried. I then remembered Slax which i had used in the past and decided to try that. And this is how you set it up (bit harder than DSL, but easier than DSL-N).

I am using Fedora 10 here but FOG is the same on both Fedora and Ubuntu so the file locations should be the same.

The first step is to get a copy of Slax, you need to get the USB version from here: http://www.slax.org/get-slax.php

Extract that .tar file to anywhere on your FOG Server and then browse to the extracted files. You will notice that there are 2 folders “boot” and “slax” these two folders need to be copied to different locations. The boot folder needs to be copied to “/tftpboot/fog/slax/” (you will need to make the slax folder). The slax folder needs copying to “/var/www/html/slax”

You now need to alter the Grub config for FOG. Open up “/tftpboot/pxelinux.cfg/default” in your favorite editor and add:

LABEL Slax
	MENU LABEL Slax
	KERNEL fog/boot/vmlinuz
	IPAPPEND 1
	APPEND initrd=fog/boot/initrd.gz ramdisk_size=6666 root=/dev/ram0 rw autoexec=xconf;telinit~4 changes=/fog/slax/

Then save the file. If you want to password protect the option which i highly recommend you need to add “MENU PASSWD yourpassword” under the MENU LABEL line.

Thats it! now when you boot to your network you should get another option on your boot menu like this:

FOG Menu with Slax

It should take a minute or two to boot and once it does you should end up with an environment like this: (good old KDE 3.5)

Slax running from my FOG Server

Now the Beauty of using Slax for this is that although its a read only file system you can actually install programs! and very easily too. If you want to install something simply download the module file from the Slax website and place it in “/var/www/html/slax/modules” and it will boot up with them installed!

4 Responses

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1. 

   andy

   the actual get slax url is
   http://www.slax.org/get_slax.php

   underscore not hyphen

   November 6, 2009 at 12:18 pm
2. 

   Arcath

   ahh missed that, the slax site was down whilst i was writing the article

   November 7, 2009 at 1:46 pm
3. 

   RAbel

   You’ve got the directories wrong in your article.

   The slax directory belongs in the /var/www/html/ directory and the boot directory belongs in the /tftpboot/fog directory.

   Also, the “APPEND” line needs a little extra added so it won’t hang up on the CDROM.

   APPEND initrd=fog/boot/initrd.gz ramdisk_size=6666 root=/dev/ram0 rw autoexec=hdparm~-E~16~/dev/hdc;xconf;telinit~4 changes=/fog/slax/

   Cheers,
   RAbel

   February 9, 2010 at 6:33 pm

Continuing the Discussion

1. [Fog] Slax booting from PXE Menu (Linux Live with NTFS and Network support)

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   November 3, 20093:03 pm