Boot an instance using PXE

Follow the steps below to boot an existing instance using PXE.

Create an image with iPXE

iPXE is open source boot firmware. See the documentation for more details: https://ipxe.org/docs

Use the iPXE image as a rescue image

Boot the instance from the iPXE image using rescue.

Legacy instance rescue

The ordering of disks is not guaranteed to be consistent.

$ openstack server rescue --image IPXE_IMAGE INSTANCE_NAME

Stable device instance rescue

To preserve the ordering of disks when booting, use stable device rescue.

1. Ensure that the hw_rescue_device (cdrom | disk | floppy) and/or the hw_rescue_bus (scsi | virtio | ide | usb) image properties are set on the image. For example:

   $ openstack image set --property hw_rescue_device=disk IPXE_IMAGE
   

   or:

   $ openstack image set --property hw_rescue_bus=virtio IPXE_IMAGE
   

   or:

   $ openstack image set --property hw_rescue_device=disk \
     --property hw_rescue_bus=virtio IPXE_IMAGE
   

2. Run the rescue using the API microversion 2.87 or later:

   $ openstack --os-compute-api-version 2.87 server rescue \
     --image IPXE_IMAGE INSTANCE_NAME