CloneZilla Server with Only one NIC and existing DNS and DHCP servers

[ARYE ARDUINO]

Hi Al,

I am new to CloneZilla BUT I have already in love with it.
our company asked me to provide an image PXE server for all our Bare metal and VM's - so it will be reliable and work with the existing setup that we currently have.

While searching for the solution I cam across this wonderful tool CloneZilla server - that I felt right away this is the solution I need to implement no matter what. It will be the RIGHT solution for the task and I will reject all other solution by showing that it can do what they are asking and EVEN more!

I have started learning the drbl solution and tested it using the CloneZilla Live. I was able to create images on our NFS server without any issues at all. I am now 100% convinced that this is the solution I should work with and I want to make that happened.

I have already installed Ubuntu-18 (we use only Ubuntu servers right now) and added the repo for the free drbl and installed the server. at this point I have also configured the server using drblsrv -i
I am not sure what exactly I was up to set since the questions were not as clear as I expected them to be, But following couple of tutorials online I have almost accepted all defaults and got the Done! and the end.
I have setup /tftpboot/nbi_img

Now following the drbl SE installaion guide - I am being asked to run drblpush -i
But, At this point I am not sure that I do need to run this - since I already have DHCP and DNS installed and the command is asking me questions regarding these settings and I don't want to override them by mistake

I have also read on several PXE installation online and I saw that I can use dnsmaq for the DHCP proxy and TFTP server, Not sure that is exactly what It is for - But most of the online tutorials mentioned that I need to install this as well as the folloing:

sudo apt install pxelinux syslinux dnsmasq

Do I need also to install the pxelinux and syslinux?
when I ran dnsmasq I get an error that that is because I already have a DNS server that was provided to me by the local router since I use DHCP.

dnsmasq: failed to create listening socket for port 53: Address already in use

That is good for my progress I assume and I hope that I am right.

This is the point that I need the most help understanding what is my next step?
I would be happy to understand how I make this drbl machine the DHCP proxy that I need to provide PXE services and TFTP image services as well.

I know that as the server is now ONLY after the drblsrv -i setting is NOT even doing anything for the purpose of PXE server that I need it for nor any DHCP setting at all.

I would be happy to know how to make this machine PXE provide the BootP protocol and DHCP Proxy server?

Please assist me since I need to provide a solution soon and I would be happy to make that the solution my company implement for image cloning solution.

Thank you!
Arye

[Steven Shiau]

By default DRBL uses ISC dhcpd and tftpd to run the PXE booting server. It's possible you can configure dnsmasq to make that, but for the moment there is no such option when running "drblpush -i".
You can try Clonezilla lite server, maybe it also meet your need:
https://clonezilla.org/show-live-doc-content.php?topic=clonezilla-live/doc/11_lite_server
It provides an option to use the existing dhcpd:
https://clonezilla.org/clonezilla-live/doc/11_lite_server/images/ocs-06-4-auto-detect-dhcpd.png
Maybe this would be easier?

Steven

[ARYE ARDUINO]

Thank you very much Steven,
Done that and it works OK with VM.

I am not able to make my Flexboot Mellanox 3.6 PXE to Boot my Inspur NE5260M5 with the Server at all. I don't know if I am missing configurations that I will be able to boot.
I would be happy if you can assist me with the configurations that I will be able to boot my inspur PXE as well.
I have setup my dnsmasq.conf as follows:

# DNS options
port=0 # No PORT
interface=ens160,lo

# DHCP Options
log-dhcp
dhcp-range=10.11.10.0,proxy # No DHCP - Only Proxy
dhcp-option=vendor:PXEClient,6,2b
dhcp-no-override

# PXE
dhcp-boot=pxelinux.0

##pxe-prompt="Press F8 for menu.", 10
pxe-service=X86PC, 'Network Boot' , pxelinux

#TFTP Options
enable-tftp
tftp-root=/tftpboot

I would be happy if someone can assist me with that - I need to have the inpur get image from drbl server as well. would be happy to be able to back up and restore the OS on my Bare-Metal Server.

Thanks
Arye

[Steven Shiau]

"Done that and it works OK with VM." -> So have you compare the configuration file /etc/dnsmasq.conf in Clonezilla lite server and yours?
In addition, you'd better to check the syslog about the error messages? To see what the issue is.

Steven