pixie

pixie

pixie is a YAML-based utility for managing and auditing PXE booted clients. Easily create Go templates for iPXE scripts, then render them using arbitrary variables associated with a boot or device. Requests to the server are logged using JSON for easy auditing.

Please feel free to open an issue or pull request!

Getting started

NOTE: By default, pixie listens on ports 8880 (HTTP) and 69 (TFTP).

pixie works by creating a static initial boot image for all PXE booted clients. This pixie.kpxe file chainloads the script located at <PIXIEHOST>/boot/<MACADDRESS>, which resolves to the configured boot script for the device with the provided MAC address.

Generating the pixie.kpxe file requires building iPXE, which requires a fair amount of dependencies. A docker image is defined here for convenience:

# Build the docker image used to generate the kpxe file
docker build -t pixie-kpxe-generator tools/generate-chainload-kpxe

The generated file will be placed inside the container at /output/pixie.kpxe, and it needs to be placed in the TFTP root directory using volume mounts.

As an example, data/files can be used as the staticroot path of the webserver. In this case, bind mount that directory to the /output directory of the container:

# Create the local directory that the generated file will be copied into
mkdir -p data/files
# Change the pixiehost address below your pixie server!
docker run -it -v "$(pwd)/data/files:/output" pixie-kpxe-generator 'http://pixiehost:8880'

Then, set up your DHCP server (see man dhcpd.conf):

• Set next-server to the IP to your pixie server
• Set filename to the pixie.kpxe

Set up your router or DHCP server to boot hosts from pixie.kpxe.

Create a YAML config, for example:

---
staticroot: "data/files"

# These are the default values
#httplistener: ":8880"
#tftplistener: ":69"

# Server level variables
vars:
  pixiehost: pixiehost:8880

# Define boots, which associate a boot script to a list of devices.
boots:
- name: ubuntu-22-static
  scriptpath: boots/ubuntu/boot.ipxe

  # Boot level variables
  vars:
    cloudinit: boots/ubuntu/cloud-init/
    eth_interface: enp0s31f6

  devices:
  - name: h1
    mac: 11:11:11:11:11:11
    vars:
      ip: 10.0.0.10
      hostname: h2

  - name: h2
    mac: 22:22:22:22:22:22
    vars:
      ip: 10.0.0.20
      hostname: h2
      # Overrides the boot level variable
      eth_interface: ens18

Then set up your artifacts using whatever structure you prefer, according to your config:

data/
├── files
│   ├── pixie.kpxe
│   ├── boots
│   │   └── ubuntu
│   │       ├── boot.ipxe
│   │       └── cloud-init
│   │           ├── meta-data
│   │           ├── user-data
│   │           └── vendor-data
│   └── ubuntu-22.04
│       ├── initrd
│       ├── ubuntu-22.04.1-live-server-amd64.iso
│       ├── user-data
│       └── vmlinuz
└── pixie.yaml

Then run it!

PIXIE_CONFIG_FILE=data/pixie.yaml go run .

Alternatively, use docker compose:

# Be sure to set staticpath to /app/data/files
docker compose build
docker compose up

How it works

In the above example, let's say data/files/boots/ubuntu/boot.ipxe looks like this:

#!ipxe

set name {{.Device.Name}}
set render http://{{.Vars.pixiehost}}/render/{{.Device.Mac}}
set ubuntu http://{{.Vars.pixiehost}}/static/ubuntu-22.04

kernel ${ubuntu}/vmlinuz cloud-config-url=/dev/null url=${ubuntu}/ubuntu-22.04.1-live-server-amd64.iso initrd=initrd ip=dhcp toram autoinstall ds=nocloud-net;s=${render}/{{.Vars.cloudinit}}

initrd ${ubuntu}/initrd

boot

NOTE: The set directives assign iPXE variables based on rendered values from the Go template. These variables are then used later in the boot script, for example ${ubuntu}.

When 11:11:11:11:11:11 goes to boot from the network, the pixie.kpxe script will be booted, which will chainload the script at /boot/11:11:11:11:11:11. That templated script will look like:

#!ipxe

set name h1
set render http://pixiehost:8880/render/11:11:11:11:11:11
set ubuntu http://pixiehost:8880/static/ubuntu-22.04

kernel ${ubuntu}/vmlinuz cloud-config-url=/dev/null url=${ubuntu}/ubuntu-22.04.1-live-server-amd64.iso initrd=initrd ip=dhcp toram autoinstall ds=nocloud-net;s=${render}/{{.Vars.cloudinit}}

initrd ${ubuntu}/initrd

boot

That script will boot over the network using the provided Ubuntu 22 artifacts, and the cloud-init files from data/files/boots/ubuntu/cloud-init will be rendered using Go templates and provided to the machine for initialization.

If the MAC address isn't configured in pixie, the default iPXE script will be sent, which simply opens a shell. The request will appear in the logs so you can easily add it to your config.