Unofficial OPSI iPXE Boot

An unofficial tool to streamline booting OPSI clients using iPXE, enhanced with several convenient helper functions for a smooth and customizable netboot experience.

Key Features

• Create OPSI Clients Directly in iPXE
  Seamlessly generate OPSI client configurations without leaving the iPXE environment.

• Automatic Hardware Identification
  Detect MAC addresses and system UUIDs automatically for simple client provisioning.

• Interactive Product Selection
  Choose the netboot product and product group to install directly through the iPXE menu interface.

• Secure Client Creation
  Includes authentication steps before client creation to ensure secure access.

• Customizable Menus
  Easily add additional boot options like netboot.xyz through configuration files.

• Static File Server Support
  Serve custom EFI files (e.g., memtest) via a built-in static file server.

Setup

Prepare OPSI Server

Create API user

It is recommended to create a dedicated opsiapi user for this tool.
Adjust the user permissions as needed in /etc/opsi/backendManager/acl.conf.

adduser opsiapi --ingroup opsiadmin --no-create-home --shell /usr/sbin/nologin

Installation

python3-venv must be installed.

# Installation
git clone https://github.com/SoerenBusse/opsi-ipxe-helper.git /opt/opsi-ipxe-helper
cd /opt/opsi-ipxe-helper
python3 -m venv .venv
source .venv/bin/activate
pip3 install -r requirements.txt

# Edit config.yml
cp config.example.yml config.yml

# Setup systemd service
useradd --system --no-create-home --shell /usr/sbin/nologin opsi-ipxe-helper

cp systemd/opsi-ipxe-helper.service /etc/systemd/system/opsi-ipxe-helper.service

systemctl enable opsi-ipxe-helper.service
systemctl start opsi-ipxe-helper.service

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Development

This project includes a helper script test-ipxe.sh to simplify development and testing. The script builds a custom ipxe.efi binary that automatically fetches boot.ipxe from your development server, eliminating the need for DHCP configuration.

Build the ipxe.efi.

Replace <ip-address> with the IP address reachable from within a QEMU VM (do not use localhost):

bash test-ipxe.sh setup <ip-address>:8000

Launch QEMU

Start a QEMU virtual machine using the built ipxe.efi as the startup firmware:

bash test-ipxe.sh run