booting FAI without PXE, tftp using kexec

[Thomas Lange]

Hi all,

I just installed a machine in a different subnet where I could no use
network booting using PXE.

But on this machine linux was already running. This is how I managed
to boot the FAI system and to start the installation.

Load the FAI kernel and initrd from the nfsroot and add FAI specific boot parameters:

# kexec -l vmlinuz-5.10.0-13-amd64 --initrd=initrd.img-5.10.0-13-amd64 --append="FAI_FLAGS=sshd,verbose,createvt FAI_ACTION=install rootovl rd.neednet ip=dhcp root=1.2.3.4:/srv/fai/nfsroot,nfsvers=3 FAI_CONFIG_SRC=nfs://faiserver/srv/fai/config"

Then reboot the computer using kexec. This will shutdown the OS and
boot the FAI kernel and initrd without going through the BIOS.

# systemctl kexec

-- 
best regards Thomas