lab setup

The lab computers (3 microservers and 2 z600s) boot multiple things tftp serves up the grub boot file, an example looks like this:

DEFAULT menu.c32 
ONTIMEOUT boot_razor
TIMEOUT 100
NOESCAPE 0
PROMPT 0

MENU VSHIFT 2
MENU ROWS 12
MENU TITLE cwulzenda.local.lan

LABEL boot_c66
  MENU LABEL Centos 6.6 (cw-c66/hd0)
  COM32 chain.c32
  APPEND hd0

LABEL boot_u14
  MENU LABEL Ubuntu 14.04 (cwulzenda/hd1)
  COM32 chain.c32
  APPEND hd1

LABEL boot_core
  MENU LABEL CoreOS Stable (cw-core/hd2)
  COM32 chain.c32
  APPEND hd2

LABEL boot_razor
  MENU LABEL Razor Node Boot
  KERNEL ipxe.krn
  APPEND initrd=bootstrap.ipxe

MENU SEPARATOR

LABEL inst_centos66_hd0
  MENU LABEL Centos 6.6 Installer (cw-c66/hd0)
  KERNEL centos/6.5/x86_64/vmlinuz ksdevice=eth0 ks=http://192.168.1.1/preseed/cwulzenda.ks ip=192.168.1.43 gateway=192.168.1.1 netmask=255.255.255.0
  APPEND initrd=centos/6.5/x86_64/initrd.img cmdline nousb
      
LABEL inst_u1404_hd1
  MENU LABEL Ubuntu 14.04 Installer (cwulzenda/hd1)
  KERNEL ubuntu/14.04/amd64/vmlinuz
  APPEND netboot=nfs nfsroot=192.168.1.1:/volume1/pxe-u1404 initrd=ubuntu/14.04/amd64/initrd.gz priority=critical locale=en_AU url=http://192.168.1.1/preseed/cw1404-puppet interface=em1

LABEL inst_centos7
  MENU LABEL Centos 7.0 Installer (stack7/hd0-1)
  KERNEL centos/7.0/x86_64/vmlinuz ksdevice=enp1s0f0 ks=http://192.168.1.1/preseed/stack7.ks ip=192.168.1.98 gateway=192.168.1.1 netmask=255.255.255.0
  APPEND initrd=centos/7.0/x86_64/initrd.img nousb
      
LABEL inst_stack
  MENU LABEL Ubuntu 14.04 Installer (stack/hd0-1)
  KERNEL ubuntu/14.04/amd64/vmlinuz
  APPEND netboot=nfs nfsroot=192.168.1.1:/volume1/pxe-u1404 initrd=ubuntu/14.04/amd64/initrd.gz priority=critical locale=en_AU url=http://192.168.1.1/preseed/stack-puppet interface=em1 text

LABEL inst_clc1
  MENU LABEL Centos 6.6 Installer for euca (clc1/hd0-2)
  KERNEL centos/6.6/x86_64/vmlinuz ksdevice=eth0 ks=http://192.168.1.1/preseed/clc1.ks ip=192.168.1.120 gateway=192.168.1.1 netmask=255.255.255.0
  APPEND initrd=centos/6.6/x86_64/initrd.img cmdline nousb
      

MENU SEPARATOR

MENU BEGIN Centos Server
MENU TITLE Centos Server
        LABEL Previous
        MENU LABEL Previous Menu
        TEXT HELP
        Return to previous menu
        ENDTEXT
        MENU EXIT
        MENU SEPARATOR
        MENU INCLUDE centos/centos.menu
MENU END
MENU BEGIN Ubuntu Server
MENU TITLE Ubuntu Server
        LABEL Previous
        MENU LABEL Previous Menu
        TEXT HELP
        Return to previous menu
        ENDTEXT
        MENU EXIT
        MENU SEPARATOR
        MENU INCLUDE ubuntu/ubuntu.menu
MENU END
MENU BEGIN Utilities
MENU TITLE Utilities
        LABEL Previous
        MENU LABEL Previous Menu
        TEXT HELP
        Return to previous menu
        ENDTEXT
        MENU EXIT
        MENU SEPARATOR
        MENU INCLUDE utilities/utilities.menu
MENU END

There's a little script that enables me to change what these boot on the fly

#!/bin/ash

help () {
  echo "usage: $(basename $0) [<host> <boot_env_name>]"
  exit 0
}

if [ "$1" == "-l" -o "$1" == "" ]
then
  for h in bartledan cwulzenda dangrabad voondon zirzla
  do
    printf "%9s :" $h
    (
      grep "^ONTIMEOUT" /volume1/tftp/pxelinux.cfg/boot/$h;
      grep "^LABEL boot_" /volume1/tftp/pxelinux.cfg/boot/$h
    ) | sed 's/boot_//' | \
    awk '{if(NR==1){a=$2;getline}{if(match(a,$2)){printf(" [\e[1m%s\e[0m]",$2)}else{printf(" %s",$2)}}}'
    echo
  done
  exit 0
fi

if [ "$2" == "" ]
then
  help
fi

case $1 in
  "bartledan"|"cwulzenda"|"dangrabad"|"voondon"|"zirzla")
    sed -i "s/ONTIMEOUT boot_.*/ONTIMEOUT boot_$2/" /volume1/tftp/pxelinux.cfg/boot/$1
    ;;
  *)
    help
    ;;
esac

it also shows the current boot options when ran with no args

bartledan : [c66] u14 core razor
cwulzenda : [c66] u14 core razor
dangrabad : [u14] esx
  voondon : [euca] u14 esx
   zirzla : [c7] esx

Most of these systems are quite dynamic, in that they get rebuilt often, (except voondon at the moment, did I mention I really like euacalyptus ?) not really a problem since it's done with kickstart/preseeding.

I've been trying out razor recently, but can't really comment on it yet since I haven't really given it enough use as the cutom built pxe setup works well and doesn't require much tinkering.