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I have a functioning PXE configuration that allows to boot to an installation by Kickstart or rescue, both via RHEL6 media.

I'm trying to add DBAN to the mix to make for a more complete solution for our needs. I have it set up to boot and it will load, but it keeps failing with

DBAN finished with non-fatal errors.
Check the log for more informatoin.
Hardware clock operation start date: Fri Jun 14 11:27:50 2013
Hardware clock operation finish date: Fri Jun 14 11:28:00 2013

 * ERROR /dev/sda (process crash)

Press and hold the power button to shutdown.

I can get it to load via CD without problem.

The PXE menu entry that I have is

label wipe
    kernel /images/dban/dban-226.bzi
    append initrd=/images/dban/dban-226.bzi root=/dev/ram0 init=rc

I've also tried without the root= or init= options with the same result.

I'm not even entirely sure about those options. Not much that I've found online gives much detail or explanation. One thing I know for sure, is that right now I don't want to enable the autonuke option. I simply want to load up the interactive method.

Has anyone been able to make this work?

EDIT: Potentially pertinent information The server that I'm testing this on (and, in fact, 99% of our servers) are VMs running on VMware ESXi. The CD works when I attach it as an ISO to the VMware console and boot to it.

theillien
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2 Answers2

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After a few minutes I wised up and thought to look at the isolinux.cfg file from the DBAN ISO. The only option after append that is common on all of them is 'nuke="dwipe"'. I put that option in place and the application loaded properly.

theillien
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0

The easiest way to ensure it works is to load the ISO directly:

LABEL DBAN
MENU LABEL DBAN - Wipe Hard Drive
LINUX memdisk
append iso raw
INITRD dban.iso

This loads the entire ISO through memdisk and boots it, so no matter what parameters the kernel is expecting, it should work.

Grant
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