[SOLVED] PXE Boot Different Subnets Microsoft WDS Server

[swain90]

Hi All,

I was wondering if you could help....?

I've setup a Microsoft Server 2016 WDS Server at LocationA, and on the local LocationA LAN it works fine. Local PCs get a DHCP address from the local switch, the PC PXE boot finds the WDS server and the imaging works fine.
Note, there is no DHCP configuration on the WDS server.

At LocationB, the LAN is on a different subnet, however routing is working between the two locations (A and B) and I can ping the WDS server from LocationB LAN switch, as well as LocationB PCs logged into Windows, so the routing appears to be OK.

When I try and PXE Boot from LocationB, the PXE PC gets the correct IP and Default Gateway Information from the LocationB LAN/DHCP pool, however once the PC has downloaded the boot file i then get "TFTP download failed". I can see the download has been successful is the WDS Event Viewer. In order to get this far, I've had to set the TFTP block size to 512. Changing this value to anything else causes my PC at LocationB to get a TFTP Timeout error during the PXE boot.

My configuration on the LocationB switch is....

DHCP Pool: option 66 ip <LocationA WDS IP Address>
DHCP Pool: option 67 ascii Boot\x64\pxeboot.com
DHCP Pool: next-server <LocationA WDS IP Address>
 

Any help would be apprieciated

 

Cheers

 

Swain90

Edited June 22, 2023 by swain90

[Tripredacus]

Client may not be able to use the relative path of the bootrom, you may need FQ path.

I read that it is possible to omit option 66 and put FQ path to the bootrom in option 67.

I haven't worked with multi-site PXE in a long time, I've moved onto using different methods and I don't even use those DHCP option anymore.

[swain90]

Finally got it working!

 

My DHCP Pool: option 67 parameter was wrong on the switch, i've changed it to DHCP Pool: option 67 ascii Boot\x64\wdsnbp.com and then also changed the TFTP block size in the WDS manager to 1024 and everything has sprung into life.