Is this possible?

[Tripredacus]

Greetings,

I was given the task to setup a Windows Deployment Server onto our network. I am going through the Configuration of the server and I have some questions. I am at the DHCP Option 60 screen right now and it concerns me.

We wish to use this server to hold our WIMs for deployment through a PE PXE environment. But I have a concern about that.

I was able to set a static IP for the server, and make it an AD Domain Controller. But it is NOT the DHCP Server for the network segment it is on.

Is it possible for other computers on the LAN to PXE Boot to this server if it isn't the DHCP Server?

Is there any good documents regarding this type of setup?

[cluberti]

You need to configure options 66 and 67 on the DHCP server serving any segment that will use this server - 66 points to the FQDN of the server, and 67 points to the boot file. That is all you should need to do.

For reference, on my DHCP server servicing clients I wish to use a WDS server on my network, I have:

66 - server.domain.com

67 - \Boot\x86\pxeboot.com

[Tripredacus]

Thanks for that information. I am slowly but surely figuring this out. I have been able to make 1 successful boot to PXE, but then the network went down. I have found that I cannot boot from the PXE unless the Deployment Server (DS) is running DHCP. Here is a layout for what is involved in the network.

1. DHCP/Proxy Server (192.168.0.5) serves IP addresses from 192.168.0.10 - 192.168.0.250. It runs MS ISA Server 2004 and acts as a router/webproxy from the LAN to the ISP connection. It exists within WORKGROUP workgroup. It is configured to look to an Exchange server for DNS and to the DS for PXE Bootloaders.

2. Exchange Server (unsure as to exact IP, but exists within 192.168.100.x) runs DNS as far as we are concerned. It exists within the WORKGROUP workgroup.

3. DS/AD Domain Controller (192.168.0.8) runs Deployment Server and has the capability of being a Ghost server as well. DHCP is currently authorised to itself, but the scope is disabled. It resides within the subnet of WORKGROUP, but operates a domain of zero members. AD is only running because DS requires it to be active. The DNS and DHCP Servers are NOT members of the domain.

The idea is that when an interface requests an IP address, it goes to the DHCP Server to get its address. If the interface wishes to do a network boot, the DHCP Server tells the interface to use the DS. Then the computer would boot from the network that way.

The problem is that in the current configuration, this does not occur. I receive Errors E35 and E39 from PXE.

In my infinite wisdom, I changed the DS scope to 192.168.0.249 - 192.168.0.249 (thus only 1 IP could be leased). When this was done, I booted a computer to PXE, it got an IP address from the DS and not the DHCP server. Then it successfully booted into a Vista Business Setup WIM (used for testing). Then the DS reported "scope full" errors and DHCP dropped across the LAN. The Proxy Server suddenly declared that it was no longer authorised to serve IP addresses. After some running around I managed to put both servers back to their initial states where it did not work.

So it would appear that DHCP needs to be actively running on the DS in order to do a PXE boot. My only concern is that the DS would not give outside network access such as the DHCP server would. I was also authorised to allow the DS to server IPs 192.168.200.200 to 192.168.200.250 but Windows reported that this was an invalid IP range and it was not a valid scope.

Questions:

1. Is there hope for this configuration of servers on the network?

2. Is there a workaround to enabling DHCP on the DS to boot off PXE?

3. Why was that address range invalid?

I should also note, that the DHCP server could not see the DS by the complete domain name. In fact, it cannot see it if any part of the domain name was used, likely because the DHCP Server is not a member. It can see it fine based solely on the computer name itself.

[Tripredacus]

Bump and cross-posted