Stocking the tftproot directory with kernel and boot images

This procedure is not required to provision ESXi operating systems. For more information on provisioning ESXi OS, see Provisioning-target-servers-with-ESXi-5-0.

The TFTP server installation process creates the tftproot directory. You must copy the kernel or boot images that you want to provision into subfolders under the tftproot directory on the TFTP server. To stock the directory:

  1. On the TFTP server host, navigate to the following directory: 


    <{TFTP install directory>\tftproot\X86PC\pxelinux\
  2. Create a subfolder for each operating system that you plan to provision. The subfolder names are not important.
  3. If you plan to provision Windows operating systems, check that the bootmgr.exe and pxeboot.0 files exist in tftproot. If you follow the instructions in "Creating WinPE Boot Images," the image creation wizard moves these files into the correct location in tftproot. If you obtain the WinPE image in a different way, see Creating-WinPE-2-0-and-later-boot-image-files.

  4. If you plan to provision Linux operating systems, copy the vmlinux and initrd.img files from the images\pxeboot directory on the OS media into the Linux subfolder. For example, copy the files to: 


    <PXE install directory>\tftproot\X86PC\pxelinux\RHEL_5

  5. If you plan to provision ESX operating systems, copy the vmlinux and initrd.img files from the isolinux directory on the OS media into the ESX subfolder. For example, copy the files to: 


    <PXE install directory>\tftproot\X86PC\pxelinux\ESX4

  6. If you plan to provision SUSE 11 operating systems, copy the initrd and linux files from the loader directory on the OS media into the SUSE subfolder.
     For example. copy Suse\SLES11_x64\DVD1\boot\x86_64\loader\initrd and Suse\SLES11_x64\DVD1\boot\x86_64\loader\linux into: 


    <PXE_ install _directory>\tftproot\X86PC\pxelinux\suse11
  7. (Optional, Windows) To prevent warnings about missing fonts in the TFTP server logs, add the font file to the tftproot directory, as follows:
    1. Under the tftproot directory, create the following path: /boot/fonts.
    2. Copy the wg14_boot.ttf file from the <WAIK installation directory>/boot/fonts into the tftproot/boot/fonts directory.

tftproot directory structure example

Verify that your tftproot directory structure under the PXE root directory is similar to the following example. The folder structure under tftproot is important and must match this example.

This example shows the data store (pxestore) under the PXE directory. The data store is not required to be under the PXE directory.

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