Booting netinst via PXE

[Lucio Crusca <lucio@sulweb.org>]

Hello *,

I've followed this guide [1] and now I have my PXE server up and running, 
however that guide doesn't tell how to configure tftp-hpa menus for Debian, let 
alone the netinst version.

This other guide [2] tell something about Lenny, but I couldn't find the 
debian-installer folder in the wheezy netinst ISO image.

I've tried adapting the instructions in both guides with a few guesses: now 
Debian boots but after asking the language and keyboard tries to mount a CDROM 
(which obviously does not exist) instead of going networked, and the show 
stops.

The PXE menu for Debian is as follows:

LABEL 6
        MENU LABEL Debian 7.2.0 (64-bit)
        KERNEL debian/7/amd64/vmlinuz
        APPEND boot=install netboot=nfs \ 
nfsroot=10.151.44.254:/cache/debian/7/amd64/loop \ 
initrd=debian/7/amd64/initrd.gz \ 
method=nfs:10.151.44.254:/cache/debian/7/amd64/loop lang=it keymap=it ip=dhcp\ 
noipv6 ramdisk_size=10000
        TEXT HELP
        Installa Debian 7.2.0 64-bit
        ENDTEXT

Obviously the server has address 10.151.44.254 and is sharing /, /cache and 
everything below those via NFS. Please note that the sheer amount of items 
after "APPEND" is the result of many trials, but I bet they aren't all 
required.

Please note also that a similar configuration does work for ubuntu netinst 
(except in that case I have boot=casper option instead of boot=install).

What am I doing wrong?

[1]. https://help.ubuntu.com/community/PXEInstallMultiDistro
[2]. http://www.howtoforge.com/setting-up-a-pxe-install-server-for-multiple-linux-distributions-on-debian-lenny-p2