Creating a PXE boot menu item for integration with SCCM

This article assumes you are working with a Systems Center Configuration Manager deployment along with Cobbler. This will allow you to boot to a SCCM install via the Cobbler PXE menu.

Create a SCCM boot CD and modify contents

In SSCM create a CD boot media and extract the contents to a temp dir, we’ll be using d:\\sccm\_boot\\ in this example. Then use imagex to mount the wim file

imagex /mountrw d:\sccm_boot\Sources\boot.wim 1 d:\wim_mount

Then copy over the SMS data directory to the mounted WIM file, grab the files needed for PXE boot, and then umount the WIM

xcopy /s /i D:\sccm_boot\sms\data\* d:\wim_mount\sms\data
copy d:\wim_mount\windows\boot\pxe\bootmgr.exe d:\sccm_boot
copy d:\wim_mount\windows\boot\pxe\pxeboot.n12 d:\sccm_boot
imagex /unmount /commit D:\wim_mount 

Cobbler Server Setup

Copy the files to the Cobbler server, in this example we’ll use pscp

pscp d:\sccm_boot\Sources\boot.wim cobbler_server:/tftpboot/sources
pscp d:\sscm_boot\bootmgr.exe cobbler_server:/tftpboot/boot
pscp d:\sscm_boot\pxeboot.n12 cobbler_server:/tftpboot/boot
pscp d:\sscm_boot\boot\bcd cobbler_server:/tftpboot/boot
pscp d:\sscm_boot\boot\boot.sdi cobbler_server:/tftpboot/boot

Make symlinks on the Cobbler server

ln -s /tftpboot/boot /tftpboot/Boot
ln -s /tftpboot/boot/BCD /tftpboot/boot/bcd
ln -s /tftpboot/boot/pxeboot.n12 /tftpboot/boot/pxeboot.0
ln -s /tftpboot/boot/bootmgr.exe /tftpboot/bootmgr.exe

Create the file /etc/default/tftpd.rules with the following:

rg \\ / # Convert backslashes to slashes

Modify /etc/xinetd.d/tftp and change the server_args line to look like the following. Note that the -v doesn’t have to be there, as it puts tftpd in verbose mode. This is useful for troubleshooting your first couple of SCCM boots as it may be missing files.

server_args             = -s /tftpboot -m /etc/default/tftpd.rules -v

Restart xinetd

service xinetd restart

Now, because Cobbler requires a “initd” flag when adding a new distro, I had to modify the /etc/cobbler/pxe/pxedefault.template with the following. You can add it anywhere, I added it after the $pxe_menu_items so it will always be at the bottom.

LABEL sccm
        kernel /Boot/pxeboot.0
        MENU LABEL M$ System Center Configuration Manager

That should be it, you should now be able to PXE boot, select the SCCM item, and begin building your win32 based system.

References

Using WDS to deploy SCCM images without the SCCM PSP Integration http://www.deployvista.com/Blog/tabid/70/EntryID/54/language/sv-SE/Default.aspx

Boot WinPE 2.0 from Linux PXE Server http://wiki.snet.at/doku.php/boot_winpe_2.0_from_linux_pxe_server